A Study Of The Spouse-selection Behavior Of First-married Residents In Xiamen

Family is a place which satisfies individual multi-dimensional demand as physiological, material and spiritual demand. And the spouse-selection is always an important study area in the marital family research. The spouse-selection is not a relaxed, purely individual free choice. It influences not only personal future and the family prestige, but also the stability of the society. The spouse-selection and the way of spouse-selection under the specific historical condition can reflect the social politics, the economical, cultural development condition to a great extent at that time, and reveal the openness and the modernized degree of social development.Taking the first-married resident in Xiamen as our study object, carrying out the theoretical perspective of sociological theories, collecting the materials by the methods of the questionnaire investigation and case interviews, using a research method combined by qualitative and quantitative measures, this paper probes and describes the status of the first-married residents' criterions and ways of spouse-selection, and tries to carry out analysis using interrelated gradient spouse-selection theories, then discusses the relations of the first-married persons' criterions and ways of spouse-selection.Finally come to some conclusions: First, the first-married residents value the personal qualities as the first and have gradually forgotten political landscape. Second, the phenomenon of gradient spouse-selection still exists, women at first marriage are more careful than men in the spouse-selection. They consider more comprehensive and focus more on external conditions, particularly the material conditions. Value Theory in spouse-selection also plays a role. The residents who have high qualifications focus more on the character and the feelings of spouse. And those who have lower academic qualifications at first-marriage are less demanding, in particular, almost nothing of qualification requirements. Third, the factors of the spouse-selection behavior are diverse. Age, gender, education, the way of spouse-selection and so on can influence the criterion of spouse-selection.