Experimental Assessment of Two Corrival Theories about Choosing Spouse in Iran

Each society and culture, according to its condition and requirements, makes special circumscriptions, criterions and norms in choosing a spouse. In every culture one may have several alternatives of his/her own opposite sex as a spouse, but spouse choosing is never accidental. In every culture, besides the circumscriptions which is due to the personal values and desires, there are some circumscriptions which are imposed by the society. Till some decades ago, the family organization was responsible for spouse choosing in Iran, but today each person's role has become more important; although cultural and social conditions have some effect on it. Therefore, nowadays spouse choosing is analyzed as an important social action and many theories have been provided for understanding the patterns of the spouse choosing. In this study and in a theoretical level, two important theories (similar spouses and different spouses) are presented as two corrival theories and then according to similarities of these theories, the indicators of the study are made. After that, by using the survey research method throughout the country and the statistical population of five thousand people, we experimentally assess the indicators of the study and these two theories of the spouse choosing. Results show the domination of the similar spouse's theory in Iran. They also show that approximately 90% of people in the external traits, 89% in the psycho-emotional traits, 93% in the personal traits, 68% in the social level characteristics and 88% in the religious beliefs, follow the patterns of the similar spouse's theory. The analytical results also conclusively show that different groups in Iran choose persons who have more similarity with them in the external, psycho-emotional and personal traits as well as the social level and religious characteristics. Although it should be noted that among men and women, the strangeness and weakness of these patterns are different.