Suppose that a man (woman) had all the qualities you desired in a partner. Think about it. Would you marry this person if you were not in love with him (her)? Chances are that you answered “no.” In today’s Western world, love typically is viewed as the raison d’être for getting hitched and for staying committed to the relationship. We’re bombarded with stories and songs that exalt love as the glue that binds people together and lead us into the happily ever after (Jackson et al., 2006). It is part of our cultural fabric. In fact, when American students were asked this question in 1995, only 3.5% of men and women said “yes” to the prospect of a loveless but otherwise satisfying marriage (Levine et al., 1995). But it’s not just Americans who are romantics. As FIGURE 15.6 shows, respondents from only two of 11 countries were fine with choosing to marry without love—India and Pakistan, where arranged marriages have remained common. Research shows that love and romance are shared around the world. But love has not always played so central a role in marriage even in the United States, and certainly does not always capture what draws many people across the world to a long-term commitment to another person. When the same question was presented to American students in 1967, only 65% of men and 24% of women said “no” (Kephart, 1967). Such studies tell us that in different eras and countries, people have been more receptive to entering into, and staying in, a marriage for reasons other than being in love. Let’s take a look at this cross-cultural variability.

FIGURE 15.6

Historical Differences in Long-term Commitment

Like the study of cross-cultural differences in intimate commitment, the historical record reveals the powerful influence of cultural expectation and norms. You live in a very different world than did your grandparents. Marriage, and staying in that marriage, is now much more of a choice than it used to be.

People hook up more frequently without any expectation of a long-term commitment (Paul et al., 2000). Fewer people are getting married than ever before, and those who do wait longer to marry (Popenoe & Whitehead, 2007). More and more couples are living together, even when they’re not married (Bramlett & Mosher, 2002). People are increasingly having or adopting babies out of wedlock (Popenoe & Whitehead, 2007). In fact, after steadily rising for five decades, the number of children born to unmarried women has crossed a critical threshold: More than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside of marriage. This is especially true for those who don’t go to college and among African Americans: 73% of Black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53% of Latino children and 29% of White children. In the United States, relationships in which couples have children are more than twice as likely to dissolve if they are not married than if they are. In one study, two thirds of cohabitating couples split up by the time their child turned 10 years old (Smock & Greenland, 2010).

Thus, what was once viewed as deviant and illegitimate is now becoming more commonplace and turning into a cultural norm. These changes are important because we rely on cultural norms to interpret what is normal and how we should conduct a relationship. But some of the changing norms can lead to erroneous expectations about relationships. For example, high school seniors now believe that it is a good idea for a couple to cohabit for a while before marriage. Yet research shows that cohabitation does not make it more likely that a subsequent marriage will be successful. If anything, cohabitation prior to marriage is associated with a greater likelihood of divorce, although the reasons for this remain unclear (Dush et al., 2003; McGinnis, 2003).

Of course, cultural change does not occur in isolation but in the context of, and in part because of, changes in the economic, technological, and population landscape. For example, whereas marriage traditionally was fueled in part by economic concerns, this is now less the case. Women’s role in the workplace is changing the relationship context, with women becoming less reliant on a husband’s financial contributions. Indeed, nations tend to tolerate more divorces as those countries become more industrialized and there are fewer gender disparities in the workplace. For example, as China has moved toward a market economy, the divorce rate has steadily risen (Wang, 2001).

Cultural, economic, and technological changes have contributed to what Finkel and colleagues (2014) characterize as three dominant models of marriage. They argue that from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s, marriage was geared primarily toward resolving practical concerns and meeting pragmatic goals, such as economic self-sufficiency. They refer to this model as practical marriage. From the mid-1800s to the mid-1960s, the breadwinner model dominated. During this time, a wife’s labor became less essential to the household’s economic self-sufficiency, and consistent with Rank’s (1936a) idea that romantic love became more important in the 20th century, marriages focused more on love, passion, and intimacy. Finkel and colleagues suggest that from the mid-1960s to the present time, marriages increasingly have become a forum for trying to experience a greater sense of satisfaction from life and self-growth and actualization. This self-expressive model can put a lot of pressure on the relationship if it is not built to support those kinds of goals. In fact, Finkel and colleagues use the metaphor that such a reliance often sets people up to climb Mount Maslow (referring to the famous psychologist who introduced the concept of self-actualization; see chapter 6) without enough oxygen.

Think about what it is to be friends with someone. Do you prefer your friends to be similar to you, sharing your religious beliefs, political views, and lifestyle? As you’ll remember, individuals are attracted to others with similar attributes to their own. To be sure, people from cultures all over the world are more attracted to similar than to dissimilar others. It is interesting to note, however, that the degree of similarity between friendship partners tends to be lower in East Asian societies, such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, than it is in North American settings (Igarashi et al., 2008; Kashima et al., 1995; Uleman et al., 2000). This is true of both actual levels of similarity and perceptions of similarity. What’s more, whereas similarity plays a major role in determining relationship quality in the United States, it is much less tied to relationship quality in East Asian countries (Heine & Renshaw, 2002; Lee & Bond, 1998).