Tag Archives: Cultural evolution

What Kind of Partners Do Men and Women Prefer to Love and Marry?

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Would you marry someone who is beautiful or handsome, kind, smart, honest, dependable, and industrious, as well as having many other qualities you desire in a mate, but you are not in love with her or him?

What do men and women believe is important for love and marriage?

It seems natural and sounds like common sense that men and women have expectations of mutual interest in mating relationships. Everyone wants not only to love but also to be loved. Unrequited love is a bummer! This is why men and women, when in love with someone, are eager to guess whether they are loved by their beloved or not.

Love and Marriage in the Historical Past

It should be noted that during other historical periods and in other cultures, love played a small role, if any, in the selection of a marriage partner. Many romantic ideals of love and mutual attraction have been depicted in novels and paintings. For centuries, they have served as romantic inspirations for youngsters from wealthy and educated social classes. The reality of marriage was more practical for the majority of people across the world (see many examples in Karandashev, 2017).

The roles of mutual attraction and love have been different in traditional conservative cultures with arranged marriages and in modern liberal cultures with free marriage choices. Nevertheless, as studies have demonstrated throughout years of research, for young men and women, mutual attraction and love are among their main preferences. And the role of these motivators has been constantly increasing over the recent years of cultural evolution across many societies.

What Did the Early Studies of Mating Preferences Reveal?

In the United States, Canada, and many European countries of the 1950s and 1960s, young people substantially increased the value of love and mutual attraction in their marital choices. Many men and women in modern societies have begun to consider love as the basis for marriage. Several studies documented that evidence in their surveys. Nonetheless, for some people in many societies and social classes love was not a requirement for marriage and was far from these ideals (see for review, Karandashev, 2017).

A study of the 1980s administered across 33 nations in 37 cultural samples from many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups identified the personality traits and the qualities of physical attractiveness and resourcefulness that men and women in various societies preferred to find in potential mates (see in Buss, 1994; Buss et al., 1989).

In the 1990s, men and women in various societies around the world viewed mutual attraction and love as the most desirable qualities in their relationships with potential mates. Many men and women in the United States, as well as in many other contemporary industrialized societies, believed that love was the primary basis for marriage (Allgeier & Wiederman, 1991).

Cultural Evolution of the Value of Mutual Attraction in Love and Marriage

How has the value of love changed throughout modern societies and cultural generations? 

Several recent cultural and cross-cultural studies have shown that mutual attraction and love play stable and even increasing roles in mating and partnership in both traditional and modernized countries. Modern men and women commonly connect love and marriage in their dreams.

A historical comparative study of the geographically diverse samples in the USA, despite the modest sample size, demonstrated stability as well as cultural evolution of mating preferences throughout the 1939–1996 period in terms of the personality, physical, and social attributes of potential partners. Data also showed that mutual attraction and love remained and even increased their mating value during that 57-year period for both men and women. This increase in the cultural value of love and attraction for marriage among North American university students suggested that marriage was evolving to a companionate type (Buss et al., 2001).

Two other historical comparative studies analyzed the data of the 1980s and 2010s in Brazil (Souza et al., 2016) and India (Kamble et al., 2014). Researchers in both studies discovered that love and mutual attraction, kindness, and understanding (among other things) remained important in mate preferences over time. 

The results from India were especially noteworthy. It was evident that, despite the long tradition of arranged marriages, young people in India have always wanted love in their marriages. Those who are familiar with Hindi cinema know that Bollywood romantic movies have traditionally featured grandiloquent dialogue and all-important songs and dances of love. These melodramatic stories of love are full of elevated emotions and expressions and beautifully illustrate the dreams of mutual attraction and love among Indian people. The latter did not preclude understanding the practical value of arranged marriages (Dwyer, 2014).

Modern Studies of Preferences in Love and Marriage

Several studies of recent times have shown that love and mutual attraction remain the enduring motivations of men and women for mating, partnership, and marriage. The authors reported their research data obtained in such culturally diverse countries as Jordan (Khallad, 2005), India (Kamble et al., 2014), Brazil (Souza, Conroy-Beam, & Buss, 2016), and the United States of America (Buss et al., 2001).

How Mate Preferences Have Changed Over Recent Decades

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Common laypeople’s observations may show that human mate preferences remain consistent over time. Have mating preferences changed over recent decades?

Nevertheless, the changes in society’s cultural norms still affected mating preferences. In many countries, societies have evolved:

  • from traditional cultures (with their conservative values)
  • to modernized cultures (with higher liberal values and social and gender equality).

People in modernized societies have become less concerned about survival values and more concerned about self-expression values. Several studies have revealed new trends in many modern societies. People have become culturally more emotionally expressive in love.

Cultural Evolution of Modern Mate Preferences in the United States

The comprehensive study by Buss and his colleagues demonstrated that the mating preferences of people in diverse samples of the USA changed throughout a half-century (from 1939 to 1996). The gender differences became less distinctive and showed a tendency to converge. In 1996, the rank of values for different mate qualities changed and showed more similarity. The increased gender equality probably affected those tendencies toward convergence and more equality in mating and romantic partnerships.

Men and women had become more selective in terms of a potential partner’s intelligence, education, and sociability. Also, such qualities as dependable character, maturity, emotional stability, and a pleasing disposition had become highly valued in a prospective partner for both a man and a woman. Men’s desires for similar educational backgrounds and the solid financial prospects of women have risen. However, chastity, neatness, and refinement, on the other hand, lost their mate-value. For men, the value of a woman as a good housekeeper and cook declined. For women, on the other hand, the mating value of a man who was ambitious and hardworking decreased. Mate preferences for what men and women perceive as attractive personality traits for relationships have changed.

Modern Mate Preferences in Different Countries around the World 

A broad cross-national study conducted by the BBC also revealed new expectations that men and women had in the early 2000s regarding the qualities of their prospective partners. Among other traits, participants across all countries considered kindness, honesty, dependability, personal values, intelligence, overall good looks, communication skills, and humor as the most important traits. Some gender differences were found. For example, women ranked honesty, humor, kindness, and dependability as more important compared to men’s valuation (Lippa, 2007; Reimers, 2007).

It is worth noting that across nations, the indices of gender equality were closely related to the ranks of preferred traits among both women and men. Thus, increasing gender equality in some societies was most likely the primary driving force behind cultural evolution.

In both women’s and men’s perceptions, the importance of physical attractiveness to a prospective partner was strongly associated with biological factors. In many modern societies, the importance of physical attractiveness was equal for men and women.

Cultural Evolution of Mate Preferences in Modern Brazil

Another example of the cultural evolution of mating preferences can be seen in Brazilian society in the period from the 1980s to the 2010s (Souza et al., 2016).

Over time, love and mutual attraction, kindness and understanding, emotional stability and maturity, education, and intelligence continued to be important for mate preferences. The gender differences were largely the same.

The study of the Brazilian sample of the 2010s, compared with that of the 1980s, still supported the evolutionary interpretation of gender differences in mate preferences. The evolution of cultural values in Brazil during that period had not changed some mating preferences. Results showed that men still preferred younger and physically attractive mates, while women preferred more resourceful partners in terms of good earning capacity, good financial prospects, or other qualities related to resource acquisition, such as education and intelligence, ambition, industriousness, and social status (Souza et al., 2016).

However, researchers found some cultural shifts over time in mating preferences. Men and women expressed more preference for mates with good financial prospects and less desire for a home and children. Modern men in Brazil no longer place value on the chastity and virginity of their partners. This trend was similar to that of other modern societies, such as the United States, China, and India (Souza it al., 2016).

Another societal shift has occurred in Brazilian society, as well as in some other societies. The cultural values of young Brazilians have changed, as reflected in their mate preferences. The value of fertility has declined. Women and men no longer preferred partners who wanted to have children (Souza at al., 2016).

Cultural Evolution of Mate Preferences in India

Modern Indian society is another example of the cultural evolution of love. Cultural changes, which occurred throughout recent decades (about 25 years) in that country, did not change some gender-prevalent mate preferences:

  • for men, physical attractiveness and youth in women;
  • for women, good financial prospects and social status in men

The changes in mate preferences among both men and women over that period were significant. People increased their preferences for mates who were good housekeepers and cooks, ambitious and industrious people, yet creative and artistic (Kamble et al., 2014).