selection criteria.
The premise that marital partners are selected in a rational choice process is further extended in the study of the effects of the marriage squeeze. The ‘‘marriage squeeze’’ refers to the gender imbalance that is reflected in the ratio of unmarried, available women to men. In theory, when a shortage of women occurs in society, marriage and monogamy are valued. But when there are greater numbers of women, marriage as an institution and monogamy itself take on lesser importance. Similarly, when women outnumber men, their gender roles are thought to be less traditional in form (Guttentag and Secord 1983).
The marriage squeeze has important effects for theoretical consideration, especially in studying the lower rates of marriage among African- American women in today’s society. Due to a shortage of African-American men, coupled with greater expectations on the part of African-American women of finding mates with economic resources (Bulcroft and Bulcroft 1993), the interplay between the marriage squeeze and motivational factors to marry suggest that future research needs to disentangle the individual and structural antecedents in mate selection. These studies also point to the complexity of mate selection processes as they take place within both the social structure and cultural gender role ideologies.
The marriage squeeze is further exacerbated by the marriage gradient, which is the tendency for women to marry men of higher status. In general, the trend has been for people to marry within the same socioeconomic status and cultural background. But men have tended to marry women slightly below them in age and education (Bernard 1982). The marriage gradient puts high-status women at a disadvantage in the marriage market by limiting the number of potential partners. Recent changes in the educational status of women, however, suggest that these norms of mate selection are shifting. As this shift occurs, one can speculate that the importance of individual characteristics such as physical attractiveness, romantic love, and interpersonal communication will increasingly come to play important roles in the mate selection process in postmodern society (Beck and Beck- Gersheim 1995; Schoen and Wooldredge 1989).
Norms of endogamy require that people marry those belonging to the same group. Concomitantly, exogamous marriages are unions that take place outside certain groups. Again, changes in social structures, ethnic affiliations, and mobility patterns have dramatically affected the modern marriage market. More specifically, exogamy takes place when marriage occurs outside the family unit or across the genders. Taboos and laws regulating within-family marriage (i.e., marriages considered to be incestuous that occur between brother and sister, mother and son, etc.) and marriage to same-sex partners are examples of the principle of endogamy. Recent attempts have been made to legally recognize same-sex marriages, thus suggesting that norms of endogamy are tractable and subject to changes in the overall values structure of a society or social group.
In addition to endogamy and exogamy, the marriage market is further defined by norms of homogamy and heterogamy. Mate selection is considered to be homogenous when a partner is selected with similar individual or group characteristics. When these characteristics differ, heterogamy is evidenced. The norm of homogamy continues to be strong in American society today, but considerable evidence suggests we are in a period of change regarding social attitudes and behaviors with regard to interracial and interfaith unions.
Recent data suggest that the number of interracial marriages for African-Americans has increased from 2.6 percent in 1970 to 12.1 percent in 1993 (Besharov and Sullivan 1996). But African- American mate selection operates along lines of endogamy to a larger degree than do the mate selection processes of Asian-American, Native American, or other nonwhite groups. Nearly onehalf of all Asian-Americans marry non-Asians (Takagi 1994) and over half of all Native-American