hypergamy
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Hypergamy (colloquially referred to as "dating up" or "marrying up") is a term used in
social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
for the act or practice of a person
dating Dating is a stage of Romance (love), romantic relationships in which individuals engage in activity together, often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the cate ...
or marrying a spouse of higher
social status Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honour, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members ...
than themselves. The antonym "hypogamy" refers to the inverse: marrying a person of lower social class or status (colloquially "marrying down"). The term hypergyny can also be used to describe the overall practice of women marrying up, since the men would be marrying down. Concepts such as hypergamy, hypogamy, and hypergyny could be considered as special cases of mésalliance.


By income

In a 2016 paper that explored the income difference between couples in 1980 and 2012, researcher Yue Qian noted that the tendency for women to marry men with higher incomes than themselves still persists in the modern era. The observed gender cliff in the distribution of women's share to the household income at 50% can be explained by income hypergamy preferences by both men and women, together with gender pay gap.


By education

A study found traditional marriage practices in which men "marry down" and women "marry up" in education do not persist in countries where women have higher educational attainment.


Differences by sex

Studies of mate selection in dozens of countries around the world have found men and women report prioritizing different traits when it comes to choosing a mate, with both groups favoring attractive partners in general, but men tending to prefer women who are young while women tend to prefer men who are rich, well educated, and ambitious. They argue that as societies shift towards becoming more gender-equal, women's mate selection preferences shift as well. Some research provides limited support for that theory, while other research strongly contradicts it. One study found that women are more selective in their choice of marriage partners than are men. A study done by the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
in 2017 found that females generally prefer dominant males as mates. Research conducted throughout the world strongly supports the position that women prefer marriage with partners who are culturally successful or have high potential to become culturally successful. The most extensive of these studies included 10,000 people in 37 cultures across six continents and five islands. Women rated "good financial prospect" higher than men did in all cultures. In 29 samples, the "ambition and industriousness" of a prospective mate were more important for women than for men. Meta-analysis of research published from 1965 to 1986 revealed the same sex difference (Feingold, 1992). Across studies, 3 out of 4 women rated socioeconomic status as more important in a prospective marriage partner than did the average man.


Prevalence

In Britain, marrying up has decreased significantly since the 1950s. It is becoming less common for women to marry older men, because current socioeconomic dynamics allow women more autonomy. Hypergamy does not necessitate the man being older; rather, it requires him to have higher status. The term 'social equals' typically pertains to shared social circles rather than economic equality. A 2012 analysis of a survey of 8,953 people in 37 countries, which found that the more gender-equal a country, the likelier male and female respondents were to report seeking the same qualities in each other rather than different ones. An empirical study examined the mate preferences of subscribers to an
online dating Online dating, also known as internet dating, virtual dating, or mobile app dating, is a method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An online dating service ...
service in Israel that had a highly skewed sex ratio (646 men for 1,000 women). Despite this skewed sex ratio, they found that "On education and socioeconomic status, women on average express greater hypergamic selectivity; they prefer mates who are superior to them in these traits... while men express a desire for an analogue of hypergamy based on physical attractiveness; they desire a mate who ranks higher on the physical attractiveness scale than they themselves do." One study did not find a statistical difference in the number of women or men "marrying-up" in a sample of 1,109 first-time married couples in the United States.


Mathematical model

Gilles Saint-Paul (2008) proposes a mathematical model that purports to demonstrate that human female hypergamy occurs because women have greater lost mating
opportunity costs In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone where, given limited resources, a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives. Assuming the best choice is made, ...
from monogamous mating (given their slower reproductive rate and limited window of fertility compared to men), and thus must be compensated for this cost of marriage. At the end of his introduction, Saint-Paul states his model is consistent with statistics published by Bertrand et al (2013) but also notes that in US Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) data gathered the same year "aggregate evidence is not so clear-cut."


Historical references

References to
Hindu law Hindu law, as a historical term, refers to the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India. Hindu law, in modern scholarship, also refers to the legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophical reflections on the na ...
books from the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
in the 19th century include the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
terms ''anuloma'' and ''pratiloma'', respectively, for the concepts of hypergamy and hypogamy.


See also

*
Ageism Ageism, also called agism in American English, is a type of discrimination based on one's age, generally used to refer to age-based discrimination against Old age, elderly people. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe this ...
* Age disparity in sexual relationships * Breadwinner model *
Dating Dating is a stage of Romance (love), romantic relationships in which individuals engage in activity together, often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the cate ...
* Dating preferences * Eligible bachelor * Erotic capital *
Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...
*
Exogamy Exogamy is the social norm of mating or marrying outside one's social group. The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which tw ...
* Men's rights movement#Female privilege * Gold digging * Height discrimination * Homogamy (sociology) * Mating system * Physical attractiveness *
Polygamy Polygamy (from Late Greek , "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marriage, marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more tha ...
* Polygyny threshold model * Resource acquisition ability *
Sexual selection Sexual selection is a mechanism of evolution in which members of one sex mate choice, choose mates of the other sex to mating, mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex ...
*
Social psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...
*
Social status Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honour, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members ...
*
Socioeconomics Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology". The classical period was concerned ...
* Trophy wife *
Utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the ...


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References


Sources

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External links

* {{Interpersonal relationships Dating Evolutionary psychology Mating systems Morganatic marriage Sexual selection