A Study on Marriage Criteria by Grand theory strategy

Theoretical literature and experimental findings reveal a vast spectrum of different criteria in mate-selection.This study tries to achieve a better understanding of mate-selection criteria by adopting a qualitative method¡ using Grand theory strategy and getting data from actual situation of agents. The data has been gathered by purposeful sampling and semi-structured narrative interview with Mshhad city s youth (girls and boys). Analyzing the data¡ 13 categories¡ which showed people s priorities in mate-selection¡ were extracted. These categories consist of countenance¡ physical conditions¡ character¡ personality and psychic trait¡ symmetry of social and cultural values¡ having former cognition¡ emotional and affective relations¡ having safety¡ having independence¡ having commitment¡ faith congruency¡ mutual respect and understanding¡ and finally bi-polar dissimilarities (class¡ education¡ sex¡ being religious and reasonable) were selected as core categories.According to these core categories¡ two different paradigmatic models were delineated for girls and boys. These two models show that girls and boys choices in each model is a mix of diverse theories such as equal partnership theory¡ intellectual selection theory¡ interpersonal relationship theory and filter theory.