ATTRACTION, LOVE, INTIMACY, MARRIAGE

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ATTRACTION, LOVE, INTIMACY, MARRIAGE DIVORCE

• Love
• Lust
• Attraction
• Chemistry
• Intimacy
• Friendship
• Romance
• Passion

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• INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS
• Filial
• Siblings
• Friends
• Couple
• Parent
• Grandparent/great-grandparent

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• Long-term couple
• Most people end up in a marriage (90)
• 40 end in divorce
• Key ingredient of all long-term relationships
  intimacy
• emotional intimacy attachment, trust, openness,
  vulnerability (exclusivity)
• physical intimacy sensual or sexual?

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• Roots of emotional intimacy primary
  relationship(s) with caretaker(s).
• Erik Erikson trust vs. mistrust
• Mary Ainsworth attachment style (secure or
  insecure)

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• ATTRACTION
• What makes us feel attracted to another person?
• familiarity
• propinquity (geographical closeness)
• complementarity (opposites attract)
• similarity (birds of a feather)
• looks (especially for women)
• income, profession, status, power (especially for
  men)
• common values long term
• personality short and long term

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• Sociobiology
• The purpose of attraction is to propagate the
  species, transmission of genetic material.
• Attractive characteristics are those that
  maximize survival of the species.
• Women young and healthy, physical attractiveness
  highly correlated.
• Males good providers, tall and strong and with
  obvious material means.

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• Marriage?
• Until about 150 years ago, marriage was not about
  two people in love.
• The purpose of marriage meet the needs of the
  group by forming alliances with other groups.
• Through the ages, marriage was an economic and
  political alliance dowry, land, mutual defence
  and enough people to produce wealth, work the
  land, exchange goods.
• Husband and wife depended on each other to run
  the family enterprise, neither could do it alone.

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• Marriage?
• Was not a religious ceremony but rather a
  symbolic formality (different symbols in
  different societies eating together, exchanging
  gifts, etc.) or even a private agreement.
• Often marriage used to forge peace or
  non-aggression agreements.
• From Middle Ages onward, slow changes toward more
  emotional bonds. Women first considered mans
  property, then helpmeet and support.

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• Marriage?
• Most important source of social security, medical
  care and economic support and survival.
• Being so important for so many people, marriages
  were not decided by the man and woman alone based
  on attraction.
• Love and lust were abundant, but unrelated to
  marriage.

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• Industrial Revolution gradual increase in value
  of the individual, their needs and goals, as
  opposed to needs and goals of family and
  community only.
• Women traded housekeeping, child-bearing and
  rearing, and sexual satisfaction of their
  husbands for financial security.
• Good wife good cook and housekeeper, defers to
  husband, loyal, good mother.
• Good husband NOT drunkard, gambler, womanizer,
  violent. (But rule of thumb).

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• Factors that helped usher the love marriage
• industrialization individual has more value
• affluence less dependence on family
• literacy romantic novels
• later, movies
• increased longevity
• secularization
• women financially independent
• lower birth rate

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• 19th century W. Europe and N. America accept new
  view husbands as providers and wives as
  nurturing homemakers. But only by the 1950s could
  a family survive on only one salary.
• Love based marriage means that if love fizzles,
  the couple need not stay together rise of
  divorce.

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• Expectations are high
• love
• passion
• friendship
• mutual liking and appreciation
• sharing many interests
• companionship
• intimacy
• commitment
• equal participation
• economic partnership
• Disappointments also tend to be high.

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• Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991)
• Attachment styles
• secure
• preoccupied
• dismissing
• fearful
• Secure
• see self as lovable, expect others to be
  accepting and responsive
• Preoccupied
• see self as unlovable but see others positively,
  seek acceptance by them

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• Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) (Contd)
• Dismissing
• see self as lovable but see other negatively, may
  put up barriers for self-protection
• Fearful see self and others negatively, avoid
  relationships
• Importance of childhood, family history. Can lead
  to dysfunctional relationships.

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• Ability to have long-term, satisfying
  relationships is related to identity development.
• Four identity types
• identity achieving
• moratorium
• diffuse
• foreclosed

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• Individuals in identity achieving
• self knowledge
• ability to focus on each other (not
  self-absorbed)
• sensitive to partners feelings and needs
• good communication
• equal power
• good conflict management
• stable relationship

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• Partners with foreclosed identity
• settled early, no search for alternatives
• accept everything from older generation
• rigid
• stable relationships if no change
• many couples who married in the 50s with
  foreclosed identities are divorcing now

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• Partners in moratorium identity
• identity in crisis
• self-preoccupied, not sensitive enough to
  partners emotional needs
• alternate between avoidance and engagement
• unstable relationship

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• Partners with diffuse identity
• mutual dependency
• not trying to achieve separate identities
• rely on each other for self-definition
• make excessive demands on partner
• threatened if one attempts independence
• communication vague
• repression of conflict and hostility
• very susceptible to external pressures
• adult responsibilities, finances,
  parents/in-laws, arrival of children

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• TYPES OF INTIMACY
• Mutual intimacy
• commit part of self to union but retain
  individuality
• strong degree of commitment
• equal sharing of power
• high levels of communication
• same basic values
• accurate perception of partners needs
• good conflict resolution

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• Pseudointimacy
• interaction at superficial level
• low level of true communication
• conflict avoidance rather than resolution
• can last if mutually convenient
• can have similar values
• Merger
• one dominant partner, one submissive
• can last if values remain same
• rigid roles
• relate in stereotyped ways
• low awareness of partners emotional needs

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• MARRIAGE
• Young adulthood (20-45)
• Conflict (Erikson)
• Independence/loneliness
• vs
• Intimacy/loss of freedom

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• Advantages
• intimacy (emotional, physical, sexual)
• interdependence (sharing resources and tasks)
• belongingness (Maslow)
• shared parenting
• continuity (memories, habits)
• shared identities (partial)
• men better mental, physical health, longevity

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• Disadvantages
• constraints of shared decisions
• loss of privacy
• need to accept others habits, quirks
• responsibilities
• women double shift, others come first

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• TYPES OF MARRIAGE
• Traditional
• Modern (Sr./Jr. Partners)
• Contemporary
• Subjective perceptions differ from objective
• assessments partners tend to see equality
• where outside observers dont.

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• COHABITATION
• More common today
• POSSLQ Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing
  Living Quarters
• Young adults courtship, usually precedes
  marriage
• Middle-aged and old widowed or divorced

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• SAME SEX COUPLES
• Men
• Relatively low monogamous
• Women
• Higher monogamy, serial monogamy common

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• DIVORCE
• 40 Canada, 50 U.S.
• Correlates with
• immature identity
• pseudointimacy
• women good income
• less social stigma
• age of marriage
• social context
• expectations

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• Costs of divorce
• children affected Wallerstein into 30s,
  affected their intimate relationships and
  self-esteem
• increase in physical illness
• increase in mental illness
• decreased income, standard of living for women
  mens available income increases by 47, womens
  decreases by 74. Why?
• women lower income
• most women keep the children but 50 of fathers
  do not pay support despite court order

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• Divorce incidence by religious group, in
• descending order
• None
• Protestant
• Catholic
• Jewish

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• When is divorce more likely to happen?
• Within first seven years.
• Increasingly, in middle age, either during kids
  adolescence (lowest marital satisfaction
  reported) or in the empty nest period.
• New trend older couples, long past the parental
  stage. Influence of greater life expectancy.

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• Some correlates
• pregnancy before marriage
• young (under 23) at marriage
• cohabitation before marriage
• poverty
• no religion
• Longitudinal study with elderly couples
• Selective memory of conflict if they stay
  together by their 80s declare a happy marriage
  all along. Forget divorce attempts, fights, etc.

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• Widowhood
• More than half women over 65 are widows.
• Only 15 men over 65 are widowers.
• Varying time for grieving
• personality, coping mechanisms
• previous losses
• happy or unhappy marriage

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• Unhappy spouses
• longer grieving
• sanctification
• Recoupling
• higher for men
• Widows who are financially OK enjoy life
• after acute grief over. More time to self. No
• longer in purdah.