The article explains how social propinquity and residential proximity affect our interpersonal relationships, love, and marriage.
Men and women tend to like those with whom they get together frequently. In social science, this is called the “propinquity effect.”
They have favorable attitudes and interpersonal attraction towards them, unless there is some aversion from the first encounters. Social psychologists call this phenomenon the “mere exposure effect.”
This is often how our positive relationships and in-group bias develop. This is how we often find friends and fall in love with a girl or boy in our immediate proximity. This can be a benchmate, a classmate sitting next to you, or a guy living nearby in the neighborhood. This can be a spatial or virtual proximity between people who meet in person or online.
The Effect of Residential Proximity and Social Propinquity on Love
Residential propinquity is the geographic proximity and physical closeness between people residing in certain neighborhoods. Spatial nearness is an important factor for the initiation of different kinds of relationships (e.g., Alphonso, 2016).
As for romantic and marital relationships, the role of propinquity is evident both in traditional and modern societies.
How Residential Propinquity Affects Marital Choice in the United States
In America, the early studies examined the residential propinquity of couples in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Haven, Connecticut. In 1931, sociologists examined the residential distance between the partners before they dated each other. About one-third of married couples resided within five or fewer blocks of each other when they first met. In cases where men and women resided farther from each other, the chance of marriage was lower—markedly and steadily (Bossard, 1932; Davie & Reeves, 1939).
Residential segregation was the most likely ecological factor explaining why propinquity influences marriage selection. Homogamy of economic, social, and cultural traits as well as ethnic endogamy could also explain why closer neighbors are more likely to marry each other. The propinquity effect was especially strong among American Jews, American Italians, and African Americans, probably due to their tendencies to settle in proximity to their cultural residential communities (Kennedy, 1943).
Another American study was conducted in the 1950s in Duluth, Minnesota, demonstrating the same propinquity effect.
Only “one-fifth of all the couples lived within five or less blocks of each other. The percentage of marriages decreased as the distance between residences increased…”
(Marches & Turbeville, 1953, p. 592).
However, the results showed a weaker propinquity impact than the earlier study in Philadelphia 20 years before. The effect of residential propinquity in marriage selection was once again confirmed. However, the importance of geographical location was lower—likely due to historical changes in the degree of residential segregation.
How Residential Propinquity Affects Marital Choice in New Zealand
Researchers also found the effect of residential propinquity and segregation of social status groups on marital choice in their study in Christchurch, New Zealand (Morgan, 1981).
How Residential Propinquity Affects Marital Choice in Israel
Another study was conducted in Israel, a society where young men and women often reside far from their permanent home regions (due to military service) for several years. As a result of such high mobility among youth, the effect of residential propinquity on dating was less important. The marriage records of 1974–1975 obtained in a centrally located town showed that the effect of residential propinquity on marital choice is lower in that country, with some variations. Cultural factors, however, influenced the effects of residential propinquity: Jews of Eastern origins were more affected by propinquity than Jews of Western origins (Tabory & Weller, 1986).
Residential propinquity and marital choice in India and Pakistan
How Residential Propinquity Affects Marital Choice in India
The factor of territorial propinquity is salient in tribal and traditional societies with limited relational mobility, such as the Lingāyats, a religious group in southern India. Interviews with the heads of the Lingāyat families in a suburb of Dharwar City showed that kinship marriage is preferential. Endogamy and hypergamy are very important rules of mate selection. The rules of this cultural group’s endogamy determine the geographical propinquity of their marital relationships (Chekki, 1968).
How Residential Propinquity Affects Marital Choice in Pakistan
The same role of residential propinquity was found in the study of an urban Muslim community in Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, conducted in 1961–1964 (Korson, 1968). While among the lower class, the residential distance between husband and wife at the time of marriage was shorter, in the upper social class, the residential distance was higher.
Residential Propinquity and Homogamy in Relationships
The residential structure of a neighborhood according to socioeconomic class, race, and ethnicity, as well as limited communication between cultural groups, certainly lead to segregation. Such segregation, along with propinquity, can be a factor affecting in-group bias in marital choice. Propinquity usually causes homogamy: partners are more favorable to one another in the same local community, church, city, or country. Due to these factors, partners in a dating relationship are often similar to each other in social class, culture, religious affiliation, and education.
Although propinquity generally means physical proximity, modern online technologies of mating extend the concept and expand the opportunities for meeting potential partners. The reported level of intimacy in computer-mediated relationships is not related to the physical distance between partners. Geographical distance does not play the same role in this case as the level of self-disclosure (Merkle & Richardson, 2004).