Unit 9

Marriage, Family and the Home

I. Discuss the following questions in small groups:
1. Is it important to get married? Is there a best age at which to get married?
2. Which is it most important for you to have in common with your mate:
- the same age?
- the same education?
- the same religion?
- the same attitudes and opinions?
- the same socioeconomic status?
3. Which qualities do you most wish for in a mate? Choose the three most important and the three least
important qualities.
II. Read the excerpt below and decide whether the following statements are true or false according to
the text:
Mate Selection
Psychologist David Buss has reviewed the available evidence on mate selection with a particular
focus on the question of whether or not opposites attract. He concluded that at least in marriage, they do not.
He found that we are likely to marry someone who is similar to us in almost every variable (Buss, 1985).
Most important are matters of age, education, race, religion, and ethnic background (in this order), followed
by attitudes and opinions, mental abilities, socioeconomic status, height, weight, and even eye color. More
than that, he found that men and women are in nearly complete agreement on those characteristics they
commonly seek in a mate (Buss, 1985; Buss and Barnes, 1986). The table below presents 13 such
characteristics ranked by men and women. There is a significant difference in ranking for only two: good
earning potential and physical attractiveness.
You should not conclude from this discussion that choosing a marriage partner is always a matter of
making a sound, rational decision. Clearly it isnt. The truth is that many factors, including romantic love,
affect such decisions. The fact that approximately 40 percent of all first marriages end in divorce and that, in
the United States, 9.4 year is the average life span of a marriage are unsettling reminders that the choices
people make are not always the best. Just as men and women agree on what matters in choosing a mate, so
do they agree on what matters in maintaining a marriage, listing first such matters as liking ones spouse as a
friend, agreeing on goals, and a mutual concern for making the marriage work (Lauer and Lauer, 1985).
Rank

Male choices
Female choices
1
kindness and understanding
kindness and understanding
2
intelligence
intelligence
3
physical attractiveness
exciting personality
4
exciting personality
good health
5
good health
adaptability
6
adaptability
physical attractiveness
7
creativity
creativity
8
desire for children
good earning capacity
9
college graduate
college graduate
10
good heredity
desire for children
11
good earning capacity
good heredity
12
good housekeeper
good housekeeper
13
religious orientation
religious orientation
(excerpt taken from B. Seal, Academic Encounters. Human Behavior. Reading, Study Skills, Writing,
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998)
1. According to psychologist David Buss, people prefer to choose a mate who is very different from
them.
2. Men and women tend to value the same qualities in a mate.

3. Women value physical attractiveness more than men do.

4. More than half of all first marriages end in divorce.
5. Men and women have the same views on what can maintain a marriage.
III.1 In this section you will hear a two-part lecture entitled Love. After listening to the lecture twice,
decide which of the following answers best approximates what the lecturer said:
1. The sociobiology people would tend to say you fall in love:
a. unconsciously
b. with a person you find nice
c. more than once in life.
2. The matching hypothesis describes peoples tendency:
a. to look for a good match in marriage
b. to be attracted by somebody who is like them
c. to choose attractive partners.
3. The lecturer says that a similar educational background:
a. matters a lot for the success of a marriage
b. is only valued by women
c. contributes to mens self-esteem.
4. Other important factors that contribute to the success of a marriage are:
a. the same income and country of residence
b. the same profession
c. the same interests and age.
5. The complementary theory argues that:
a. men and women complement each other
b. men are dominant and women are submissive
c. opposites attract.
6. The Romeo and Juliet effect refers to:
a. people whose attraction to each other increases as they face opposition
b. people whose parents oppose their marriage
c. people who do not like their in-laws.
III.2 The lecturer stated that as a general rule people of the same religion and race had a better
chance of staying married. Do you know any couples of mixed race, religion, or culture? Do you think
that they face more difficulties than other couples? Considering the information that you heard in the
lecture, why do you think there are so many failed marriages in the United States? Is the situation
different in Romania?
IV. Read the following texts, identify the main argument(s) of each and decide whether you
agree/disagree with it/them.
A. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are
also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling.
Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last,
principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state
called being in love usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending They lived happily ever after is
taken to mean They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married, then
it says what probably never was nor ever would be true [] But of course ceasing to be in love need not
mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense love as distinct from being in love is not merely a
feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in

Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for
each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do
not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be in
love with someone else. Being in love first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables
them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is running: being in love was the
explosion that started it. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
B. Vladimir Lossky in particular, as well as other theologians, insists on the fact that there is an
important difference between the words 'person' and 'individual' in theological usage. [...] We are
all individuals to the extent to which we are alienated one from another, separated from God, and
broken up within ourselves. [] Between persons there may be perfect love, which is not a love of
possessiveness, which is not greed, but which is love as Christ describes it. No one loves truly who
is not prepared to give his life for the other. Giving one's life does not mean dying, giving one's life
means pouring out oneself totally, unreservedly. We have notions of love which are very
ambiguous. In C. S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" the old devil writes about love to his young
nephew who under his guidance is just learning to be a proper devil. He says, "I can't understand
why the Enemy [the Enemy being God] says that He loves us [He loves mankind]; because He
leaves you free. You can do what you want. You can accept Him or renounce Him. You can follow
Him or turn away from Him. When I say that I love you, what I mean is that I want to possess you
so that nothing of you is outside my power. When I think of loving you perfectly, I think of
devouring and digesting you in such a way that nothing is left of you outside me".
Such is the devil's 'love'. But to a greater or smaller extent, it is also what we find in human
relationships. Do you really think of yourselves, of me, of anyone except the great saints, as people
who have looked at another person and said, "She or he is my other myself, my alter ego. I exist
only in relation to this person. I exist only as an elan, a motion towards this person. I exist only
with, for this person. Apart from this person I do not exist"? Because that is love. [] This is what
love should be between human beings, and not only the love that unites married people one to
another. I am speaking of love as the way in which humans could relate to one another if the person
predominated over the individual in them.
(Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, The whole human person: body, spirit and soul,
http://www.metropolit-anthony.orc.ru/eng/eng_09.htm)