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Mate Selection Across Cultures
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Mate Selection Across Cultures

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August 2003 | 312 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
"A book like this is needed because we teach about couple formation as in some ways 'universal' and in other ways culturally bound. We have few resources for showing how various countries and cultures are the same and yet different….I am interested in giving students a broad view of relationships and families, and this text would help me."
 
                                                                   --Susan Hendrick, Texas Tech University

"I believe that this is a much needed book. . . . Faculty in family studies, personal relationships and other fields are working to. . . diversify their courses, and this book has the potential to be a true asset in such endeavors."                                                                          

                                                                           -- Sally A. Lloyd, Miami University  

Mate Selection Across Cultures explores one of the most basic human endeavors—couple formation—with particular attention to those relationships that lead to marriage. Which characteristics are most prized in a mate? How do variables like personal and cultural values, religious beliefs and practices, political and historical contexts, socioeconomic standing, and interpersonal attraction affect the pairing process? Editors Raeann R. Hamon and Bron B. Ingoldsby examine the enterprise of mate selection and look at the similarities and differences of human bonds around the globe.  

Mate Selection Across Cultures provides a contemporary, global perspective on the couple formation process in various regions of the world including countries such as Ecuador, Kenya, Israel, and many more. This book is unique in that it explores the vast sub-cultural diversity and variation that exists within any one country and also reviews such concepts as modernization/traditionalism, arranged marriage/free choice, love/family practicality, cohabitation/marriage, and collectivism/individualism. In addition to exploring these dichotomies, the editors delineate the partner selection process and investigate the practices, customs, traditions, rituals, and ceremonies associated with the formalization of these relationships. 

Features of this text:  
  • Expert contributors provide students with an "insider view" of the original research and of the existing literature on the individual countries and regions addressed
  • Includes countries for which there is little or no published family scholarship
  • Case studies, vignettes, and photos of courtship and wedding traditions across cultures enliven the text for readers
  • Uniformity across chapters makes it easy for instructors and students to examine comparisons between and among different cultures  

Mate Selection Across Cultures is an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in marriage, family, and human relations in Family Studies, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, and related disciplines.

Raeann R. Hamon (Messiah College) & Bron B. Ingoldsby (Brigham Young University)
Introduction
 
Section 1: North America
Bron B. Ingoldsby (Brigham Young University)
1. The Mate Selection Process in the United States of America
 
Section 2: The Caribbean and South America
Raeann R. Hamon (Messiah College)
2. "It's Better in the Bahamas:" From Relationship Initiation to Marriage
Paul L. Schvaneveldt (Weber State University)
3. Mate Selection Preferences and Practices in Ecuador and Latin America
Winston Seegobin (Messiah College) & Kristen M. Tarquin (University of Buffalo)
4. Mate Selection in Trinidad and Tobago: A Multireligious, Multicultural Perspective
 
Section 3: Africa
Baffour K. Takyi (University of Akron)
5. Tradition and Change in Family and Marital Processes: Selecting a Marital Partner in Ghana
Stephan M. Wilson (University of Nevada, Reno), Lucy W. Ngige (Kenyatta University, Nairobi), & Linda J. Trollinger (University of Kentucky)
6. Connecting Generations: Paths to Maasai and Kamba Marriage in Kenya
 
Section 4: The Middle East
Bahira Sherif-Trask (University of Delaware)
7. Love, Courtship, and Marriage from a Cross-Cultural Perspective: The Upper Middle Class Egyptian Example
Shulamit N. Ritblatt (San Diego State University)
8. Couple Formation in Israeli Jewish Society
Nuran Hortacsu (Middle East Technical University)
9. Marriage in Turkey
 
Section 5: Europe
J. Roberto Reyes (Messiah College)
10. Couple Formation Practices in Spain
Manfred van Dulmen (University of Minnesota)
11. The Development of Intimate Relationships in the Netherlands
 
Section 6: Asia
Nilufer P. Medora (California State University, Long Beach)
12. Mate Selection in Contemporary India: Love Marriages vs. Arranged Marriages
Yan R. Xia (University of Nebraska, Lincoln) & Zhi G. Zhou (Hebei University, China)
13. The Transition of Courtship, Mate Selection, and Marriage in China
Colleen I. Murray(University of Nevada, Reno) & Naoko Kimura (University of Nevada, Reno)
14. Japan and Multiplicity of Paths to Couple Formation

"A book like this is needed because we teach about couple
formation as in some ways ‘universal’ and in other ways culturally bound. We
have few resources for showing how various countries and cultures are the same
and yet different….I am interested in giving students a broad view of
relationships and families, and this text would help me."

Susan Hendrick
Texas Tech University

"I believe that this is a much needed book….Faculty in family studies, personal relationships and other fields are working to. . . diversify their courses, and this book has the potential to be a true asset in such endeavors."

Sally A. Lloyd
Miami University
Key features
  • Chapters authored by experts on the individual countries under consideration ensure a solid review of the existing literature on each particular country while also giving students an "insider view" of the original research and methodologies of the various contributing authors.
  • Case studies, vignettes, and photos of courtship and wedding traditions across cultures enliven the text for student readers; the photos help to personalize this most important and powerful human activity.
  • A common set of guidelines and format for each contributing author provides uniformity across chapters to make it easy for instructors and students to make comparisons between and among different cultures.
  • An Introduction by the volume editors provides a degree of unity that should further assist students in seeing the forest for the trees.

Sage College Publishing

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Go To College Site

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