Chapter 8 Committing to Each Other

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Chapter 8Committing to Each Other

• Key Terms

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• arranged marriageMarriages arranged by the
  parents of prospective partners. Partners may not
  even meet their prospective spouse until the
  wedding day.
• free choice culturePeople freely choose their
  own mates.

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• cross-national marriageThe future spouse comes
  to the United Staes to marry or travels to the
  home country for the wedding ceremony.
• courtly loveRomantic love that flourished during
  the Middle Ages.

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• bride priceMoney or property that the future
  groom pays the future brides family so he can
  marry her.
• dowryA sum of money or property brought to the
  marriage by the family.

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• exchange theoryWhether relationships form or
  continue depends on the rewards and costs they
  provide to the partners.
• marriage gradientThe tendency for women to marry
  up with regard to age, education, occupation
  and even height.

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• pool of eligiblesA group of individuals who are
  considered most likely to make compatible
  marriage partners.
• homoganyChoosing a partner that is like oneself.

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• endogamyMarrying within ones social group.
• exogamyMarrying outside ones group.

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• heterogamyMarrying someone dissimilar in race,
  age, education, religion, or social class.
• status exchange hypothesisAgreement that an
  individual might change his or her socially
  defined superior racial/ethnic status for the
  economically or educationally superior status of
  a partner in a less-privileged racial/ethnic
  group.

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• blocking strategiesUsed to deflect negative
  response by screening, discrediting, or directly
  confronting the offending person or persons.
• transforming strategiesReinterpret negative
  responses to define them differently.

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• theory of complementary needsWe are attracted to
  partners whose needs complement our own.
• assortive matingGradually sorting out the pool
  of eligibles who would not make the best spouse
  that they could find.

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• getting togetherCourtship process in which
  groups of men and women congregate at a party or
  share an activity.
• date rapeBeing involved in a coercive sexual
  encounter with a date or acquaintance.