The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex, and Marriage by Pamela C. Regan

Author:Pamela C. Regan [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781483342825
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2008-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

The Role of Culture

Another important correlate of attitudes toward premarital sexual activity is culture. As noted by cross-cultural psychologist Robin Goodwin (1999), human societies vary considerably in the extent to which they permit premarital sex, and this is partly due to whether they are collectivist or individualist in cultural orientation. Recall from Chapter 4 that collectivist cultures are those in which people are integrated into cohesive groups; marriages link families and are sometimes arranged by those families; group boundaries are explicit and firm; and there is a strong emphasis on group loyalty, solidarity, and shared activity. Individualist cultures reflect the opposite pattern; people are loosely connected and autonomous, group boundaries are flexible, and emphasis is placed upon the fulfillment of personal preferences and goals in romance and other life pursuits. Goodwin’s review indicates that young adults in collectivist cultures (e.g., Asia, the Middle East) strongly disapprove of premarital sex, whereas young adults from individualist cultures (e.g., Britain, Belgium, France, Scandinavian countries) tend to hold more permissive attitudes (also see Widmer et al., 1998; Yan, 2006).

Indeed, Susan Sprecher and Elaine Hatfield (1995) asked over 1,500 college students from the United States, Russia, and Japan to indicate how acceptable they thought sexual intercourse was on a first date, when casually dating, when seriously dating, when pre-engaged, and when engaged to be married. Although participants from all three cultures disapproved of sex between uncommitted partners (those who were on a first date or those who were casually dating), American students generally were more tolerant of sexual activity between seriously dating, pre-engaged, and engaged partners than were Russian and Japanese students. In America, sex was deemed acceptable as soon as some evidence of the couple’s commitment was present. In Russia and Japan, however, the fact that the couple was seriously involved or even engaged was insufficient justification for sexual activity—a marriage vow was required.

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