Romantic love is not entirely a matter of unguided impulse

Romantic love is not entirely a matter of unguided impulse. If it were, there would be little hope of improving mate selection. Although individual tastes and perhaps unanalyzed biological factors enter into romantic attraction, social factors play a large part as is indicated by studies of the attitudes of high-school and college students with reference to traits they expect in a member of the opposite sex.

A questionnaire was given to a group of 869 high-school students in the sophomore, junior, and senior classes, 426 boys and 443 girls being asked to rate 25 traits, putting a 1 by the trait they considered most important in the person they would like to go with, and a 25 by the trait they disliked the most, arranging numbers from 1 to 25 for the other traits in terms of their desirability.

Both boys and girls listed "real brains" as the most important trait. Girls listed second "cleanliness," third "good health," fourth "dependability," fifth "cheerfulness." Boys considered "real brains" of first importance, "good health" of second importance, "good looks" third, "cleanliness" fourth, "cheerfulness" fifth. It was interesting to notice that girls, rather than listing "good looks" as third in importance, listed it as eleventh.

Because these young people were in school, where good marks are a basis for competition, they tended to rate "real brains" more highly than young people under other situations would.

Studies of college students show that they rate certain personality traits very high. For example, a study at New York University showed that both men and women rated "disposition" extremely high; 98 per cent of men and 96 per cent of women said they would not marry a person with an unattractive disposition and personality. This study also showed that men rate looks much higher in their marriage partners than do women. Sixty-eight per cent of the men would not marry girls who were not good-looking; whereas 79 per cent of the girls would marry husbands who were not good-looking.

It will be seen that these choices reflect definitely the values of our own culture, as they affect choices in general and as they affect differences in choices between men and women. Being goodlooking, as in the other studies, is rated much more highly by young men than by young women. In our society good looks is considered a very important attribute of women, not of men. Young women are much more insistent on having a husband who has more education than they. This relates directly to the role of the man as breadwinner. His occupation determines the status of the family, their standard of living and income. Young women want a man who is older and established financially. Other results in the test reflect unique factors in our marriage customs which clearly affect romantic tastes.

All these studies indicate clearly that young people do not face the problem of mate selection on the basis of romance alone. They are guided by the general standards prevalent in our culture which affect notions of beauty, character, and disposition and by the fundamental factors that affect economic security. The fact that such values do act as a check upon romance and a guide to it indicates clearly that the family, the church, the school, any institutions having to do with the training of youth, can provide values which will guide adolescents and youth more intelligently in their evaluation of a person as a prospective marriage partner. This important field of social behavior need not be left in the realm of chance even in an age when adolescents and youth, rather than parents or other adults, select their own mates.