Informal Influences of Family and Peers

To a great extent, parents determine what potential partners their children will be exposed to by living in a particular neighborhood and sending their children to a certain type of educational institution. Children learn from their parents and peers what qualities to look for in a marriage partner. The feelings, attitudes, and prejudices of one's family and friends largely influence one's choice.

Limiting Rules of Society

In many societies, social norms dictate the type of person with whom we can or cannot have a relationship. Two of the most common are the rules of endogamy and exogamy.

Endogamy. An endogamous rule specifies that the marriage partner be a member of a certain group, whether it be one of social class, religion, caste, race, or nationality. Even though in the United States there are few formal endogamous norms, there are a host of informal expectations that are held by one's family and friends. A person often feels extreme social pressure to marry within his/her race, age group, religion, and social class.

Exogamy. Societies also have rules regarding who one should not marry. An exogamous rule specifies that the marriage partner be from outside a specified group. All societies are exogamous in that they forbid an individual to marry his/her close blood relatives. Individuals may be urged to marry outside their clan, village, tribe, or kinship group.

The Incest Taboo. The incest taboo, an extension of the exogamous rule, specifically forbids sexual relations between blood-related family members, such as siblings, grandparents and grandchildren, and parent and child. Except in certain rare circumstances, the incest taboo is found in almost every known society. If incest and marriage among blood relatives were a common practice, the family would cease to act as a functional unit where social roles are clearly defined. Family relationships, roles, and authority patterns would be greatly complicated and confused. For example, a female child produced by a mother-son union would be both a "sister" of the father and a "granddaughter" of the mother.

Social Context

Another important factor in mate selection is the social context within which interaction and selection take place. Propinquity, routine activities, and familiarity are all social contextual factors that influence with whom we come into contact, and the attitudes formed after these contacts.

Propinquity. Considering all the people there are in the world, we are of course more likely to meet and make contact with those individuals who are in close proximity to us, be they coworkers, neighbors in our apartment complex, or students sitting next to us in class.

Routine Activities. We are more likely to meet and strike up a conversation with persons in the social context of our routine activities. Routine activities provide us with topics of mutual interest with which to begin conversations. For example, a person who joins a wine-tasting club, which meets every week, has an available pool of others at the club who share a common interest. Furthermore, the person has a nice conversation opener: "What did you think of that burgundy we just tasted?"

Familiarity. According to the "mere exposure effect," continual interaction with another person produces positive attitudes toward that person. The more often you ride on the bus with a particular person, the more likely you are to be attracted to him/her.