Most people say that we are paired on the basis of similarities or opposites that are supposedly attracted. What do sociologists say about this?
What sociologists say about the matching of people in pairs will sound brutal, because it breaks certain beliefs that we have and in which women especially believe. First of all, we're not dealing with an accident. We do not go by chance to the essence, which is very much matched with various social parameters to us.
It means that…
I mean a person who has the same education, more or less similar level of physical attractiveness, similar level of earnings. We meet such people in specific places that sociology calls matrimonial markets or sexual markets. Once it happened in the neighborhood, men and women were getting together in places like school. Even during the times of the Polish People's Republic in the 1970s, the school was one of the main matrimonial markets and actually at the end of high school or technical school there was a case, because everyone was paired. Today it crumbled very much.
Does this mean that we no longer have a chance for a relationship?
It is not so bad. About 15 percent of high school students have someone to pair with. The rest does not work in this system at all, because people are looking for a partner between 25 and 30 years old. However, I do not envy ladies, especially students of humanities. Going to clubs when these couples are growing up after graduation does not make much sense either, and old strategies, where pharmacist ladies were looking for men at the neighboring medical department, also belong to the past.
And what about this well-known saying that opposites attract? People do not use such a strategy?
People are paired within their own group, what we call homogamy. This means that we are looking for partners on the basis of similarities according to social parameters (similar world view, education, earnings). If we associate with someone who differs from us, the life together is very difficult. Men are not looking for partners who are located in the social hierarchy higher than them. Only women who we say are hyperergic are doing it. In practice, this means that middle-class women are looking for slightly better-paid and somewhat better-educated men. This is one of those terrible information that women do not like to listen to. If a woman earns four million dollars a year, she will look for a gentleman who earns six. And she will not be looking for someone who has a sense of humor, is a nice teddy bear, if she is great for taking care of children, and at the same time does not work. She will be looking for someone who is better equipped than herself and this is an insurmountable trend, which means that we do not see exceptions to this trend in sociology at all.
Where should women look for these right men?
There is a problem in this, including the fact that 70 percent of Polish students are women and it is easy to count what percentage of men and women graduates, assuming that more than half of people aged 20-25 in these studies are . This means slightly hoping that 30 percent of women with a bachelor's or master's degree will not find a suitable partner. Ladies will have to look lower, among men who have a secondary education and lower earnings. Women do not do it. Once they did in the history of our culture after the First World War, when several million French men were killed. Only then did the French women look for slightly weaker and younger ones. British sociologists say today that a large percentage of women will not find partners at all or will not even look for them, and if they do, they will be relationships with men already busy who have wives or partners.
But if there are no such suitable and free men, maybe women should turn a blind eye and lower the bar when it comes to expectations of a dream partner?
This is something that spends the dream of eyelids not only for sociologists, but also for social politicians, because why are we reproducing so poorly? Because women do not find suitable partners for themselves. Those who have the right qualities to raise a child with them. Social politics comes to the question of why women do not associate with an educated man, but a poor earner, but with a greater sense of humor, which guarantees that we will spend time pleasantly? Women, however, do not change their preferences. Yes, they are looking for those who have a sense of humor, but it would be best if they were still rich. Women are now better educated and are doing well on the job market, and that means they can keep their households themselves. It also seems that in such a situation, they may have partners who are not at all wealthy ... Women, however, do not pay attention to such men. They add new ones to these old features. A sense of humor is added to the money, which reduces the number of partners to the matrimonial market.
It does not sound too romantic ...
Sociologists deprive all relationships of the spirit of Romanticism. For the first time, he did it in 1967 by William Kephart, who studied the marital preferences of women and men on one of the American campuses. To this end, he asked a historical question: If you found the perfect partner, but would you not love her, would you marry her? What do men answer? No, I do not love her, so I will not marry her. Kephart asked the same question to women: If you met a man who would be perfect, but you do not love him, would you marry him? The women answer: I do not know.
Without being in love, can I fall in love with time?
They are so-called adaptive matrimonial strategies. Sociology is convinced that people fall in love with the right people. Especially women fall in love with who they need. I always translate to my students, which causes unchanging laughter on one side and a slight embarrassment on the other that if we talk about any romantic sex, they are men. They fall in love and do not rationalize. Women rationalize and there is nothing strange about it. Why? They must, because they can not afford a child who is an investment and land with just anyone.
What can big differences between partners lead to?
Class differences destabilize marriage. Completely unstable will be, for example, a marriage where a woman is from a slightly higher class and earns more. Looking at statistical data, such a relationship has no chance of survival. If, however, a woman earns less, then the situation is reversed - the relationship will be permanent. Women rarely come out of such marriages. In turn, in situations where men lose their jobs or are less enterprising, women tend to end such relationships. This is happening worldwide, where divorces are permissible.
This is probably a lot of these differences. How many divorces do we have in Poland?
More than 30 out of 100 newly marriages are falling apart, and let us remember that getting a divorce in Poland is not so easy. The reason for divorce are often situations when there is an economic disproportion or differences in education. This is an interesting phenomenon, because 24 percent of couples in Poland are just marriages in which men are disadvantaged.
Difference of characters - this is supposedly the most frequent reason given by couples on a divorce application.
People think that the most common reason for divorce is betrayal, and this is completely untrue. Treason by women, especially those professionally active, is not treated as a threat. For the most part, it is simply about money or problems with the division of housework. These are the most common inflammatory foci. The men stood at the secondary school-leaving examination and women went to university. The risk of divorce is higher in such situations, because it is women who land in good workplaces, where colleagues have different parameters than their husbands, who usually deal with the TV remote control. Husbands are not interesting for their wives. However, the greatest risk of divorce is on the lowest floor of the social hierarchy, where, for example, a man goes to work somewhere in the saxis and leaves the family. There is also a woman's claim for divorce.
Where is not divorce?
Only in one class, where there is a lot of money involved, people are not fooling around. There are some 250,000 people in this class in Poland. Parents familiarize the right people with the right people. Mezalianse do not happen. It is also the only class where women are not professionally active. Men work. There are plenty of resources in the family for this. Divorce is therefore excluded. As in the fifteenth, sixteenth or seventeenth century, marriage is a financial and reproductive institution.
Who has worse in finding a partner today? Women or men?
I would say that everyone. In the middle of the twentieth century, someone who had an arm and a leg could easily have a husband. Today, women who are professionally active do not have time to engage in a relationship that is hard work. The media is adding to this, and especially the women's press emphasizes the slogans like: work on a relationship, etc. The more women do, the more men withdraw. Both sexes today have a hard time and for me as a member of the presidential team for social policy, it is clear that children will not be.
https://miastakobiet.pl/brutalny-rynek- ... r/13864254
* Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Szlendak
Associate professor, doctor habilitated, director of the Institute of Sociology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He examines the transformation of customs in Western culture, especially in Polish culture and biosocial determinants of sex life.
EDIT:
ooops. this guy considers country with average monthly wage 400$ as "western".
this article feels (unfortunately) like joke-ception