The authors discussed very important questions: “How important is love as a basis for marriage today?”
Based on their study, they found that “87 percent of the men and 91 percent of the women said that they would not marry someone unless they were in love with that person, regardless of whether that person had all the other qualities that they desired in a mate. Was expected annual income after graduation from college related to women’s responses to the “Love” question? The answer is yes, but to our surprise the results of our study were in the opposite direction from those we hypothesized. That is, the more the women in our sample expected to earn after college, the less they required love. Those women who indicated that they expected to earn the most money after graduation were the ones most likely to consider marrying a man with whom they were not in love, provided he had all the other qualities they desired in a mate. For the men in our study, there was no relationship between how much money they expected to earn and their responses to the “Love” question.” (p. 26)
The authors compared “How do today’s youth compare to their counterparts of the past fifty years in the relative emphasis they place on each of the eighteen listed desirable characteristics in a potential mate? In our sample surveyed in 1990, men and women were alike in the three characteristics rated most important, but Mutual Attraction supplanted all other qualities in ranked importance. The top three qualities, in order, were Mutual Attraction, Dependable Character, and Emotional Stability.” (p. 26)
The authors summarized that “it seems that very few young people today would consider marrying a person with whom they were not in love, regardless of the qualities that person possessed. However, although about 90 percent of students surveyed would not marry without love, only about half agreed that the disappearance of love is sufficient reason for divorce. Men and women do agree on the three most important characteristics in a potential mate, but there are clear gender differences as to the relative emphasis placed on certain other qualities. Specifically, men value physical attractiveness more than do women, whereas women place more emphasis on the financial prospects and ambitiousness and industriousness in a potential marriage partner.” (p. 27)
The authors were wondering whether their results could be generalized beyond college students:
“Would our findings be true of North Americans in general, or are they limited to today’s college students? We are currently in the process of exploring that question by surveying the general public and asking adults, of all ages, the same questions we posed to the student sample. Perhaps we will find that people answer these questions differently depending on the generation to which they belong.” (p. 27)