Department of Social Sciences, University of Nicosia, Cyprus.
Br J Psychol. 2010 Nov;101(Pt 4):695-704. doi: 10.1348/000712609X480634. Epub 2009 Dec 18.
Parents are influential over mate choice, and in most human societies they choose spouses for their offspring according to their own preferences. However, surprising little is known about the qualities which make a woman desirable as a daughter-in-law and a man desirable as a son-in-law. Using evidence from 67 societies such traits are identified and three hypotheses are tested: first, the hypothesis is tested that parents desire in an in-law qualities which are beneficial to them and their kin. Second, it is hypothesized that such preferences are contingent upon the sex of the in-law, as traits are weighted differently in a daughter-in-law and in a son-in-law. The third hypothesis tested is that parental preferences vary according to the subsistence type of a given society, as traits are valued differently in agropastoral societies and foraging societies. The evidence presented here provides support for all three hypotheses.
父母对配偶选择有影响力，在大多数人类社会中，他们会根据自己的喜好为子女选择配偶。然而，关于女性作为儿媳和男性作为女婿受欢迎的原因，人们知之甚少。本研究利用来自 67 个社会的证据，确定了这些特质，并检验了三个假设：首先，检验了父母希望姻亲具有对他们及其亲属有益的特质的假设。其次，假设这种偏好取决于姻亲的性别，因为在儿媳和女婿中，特质的权重不同。检验的第三个假设是，父母的偏好因特定社会的生计类型而异，因为在农牧社会和狩猎采集社会中，特质的价值不同。本文提供的证据支持这三个假设。
