Attraction and Decision in Choosing a Spouse

Abstract

The choice of ones partner plays an important role on the functionality of the couple, on the degree of cohesion and on the chances of stability. Theoretically, the choice of the conjugal partner in the contemporary space is a free one, not conditioned by families, material transactions or other types of strategies, that exclude the will of the partners. However, a series of cultural elements assimilated by individuals in their social environments consistently mark their influence in this selection process. Today, the most common criterion regarding the selection of the conjugal partner is that related to homogamy, therefore, the free choice must be understood as a composition with different weights, built from cultural assimilations from the community where the conjugal partner became socialized him and which holds subjective elements specific to personal ideals.

However, the contemporary space offers the premise of a rethinking of the homogamic principle, its borders being resized and, at the same time, reassembled in a much freer manner. If once upon a time, spatial and cultural proximity influenced the decisions of choosing a spouse, today, virtual space offers the individual the possibility of constructing criteria with a triple advantage: the possibility of choice, independent of the general norm of the cultural community, the unlimited expansion of proximity, the cancellation or reduction of the reference of the community censorship. Today, individuals no longer reproduce the marital functionality learned in their families of origin. Young people build new relationships that correspond to personal ideals and this type of new attitudes increasingly stimulate relational individualism and, by extension, another type of society, that will reduce to a minimum the old claims of social conformity.