Don’t you love studies? I adore them. People can find studies to support just about any thesis. But when they write them up in an article they’re so convincing that you usually assume they’re legit. Especially when they confirm what you already think, or what you wish you knew.
This link is in the latter category. It’s a very cheering article about how men are so desperate to settle down that they’ll marry even someone who is second best and learn to love her later. (Kind like the lab tech I mentioned a while back who claims he married his wife for her money.)
Bad for Shidduchim 
Best line for frum people: “People start looking at you and thinking, ‘You seem like a decent dude. Where’s the woman?’ You’ll go to these weddings, and you’ll be at the increasingly declining table of the singles. There’s, like, three guys and a girl. You’re all kind of looking at each other like, ‘Wow, these odds are pretty bad.’”
“31 percent of adult men said they’d commit to a person they were not in love with—as long as as she had all the other attributes they were looking for in a mate” – agree
“21 percent said they’d commit under those same circumstances to somebody they weren’t sexually attracted to” – disagree
“almost 40 percent of whom said they’d commit without love (compared with 22 percent of women). The gap narrowed as men and women entered their 30s, and widened again past 40”, “We have a stereotype in this culture that it’s men who are the ones who don’t want to commit, who don’t want to settle down, who are the scarce resources. But in fact, it’s the opposite.” – most of the older guys (35+) I speak with tell me the older they get the less picky they become and the more picky the girls become. Basically their yielding curves never quite meet.
“romantic opportunity for men has suffered the opposite fate. And that problem is bound to be worse for poorer men.” – disagree – kollel guys have way more share of women. Me having a job scares of most females.
I call that flexibility. Willingness to accept less than perfection. To accept the realities of life. I think it’s interesting that we often look at “the one who got away” as our #1 choice… instead of seeing the people who mutually value and respect one another, who choose to build a life together… as the #1 choice.
The idea of love as an emotion for marriage versus building it through giving isn’t new to Judaism. In fact, The idea of giving -and building love through giving has historically been the foundation of marriage. It is a virtue, a choice and the essence of commitment.
Needing an emotional high as the predetermined criteria for commitment isn’t ideal, particularly since emotions are often in flux, which the state of American relationships and commitment can easily attest to. Not my value system, and not a value system I want to marry into.
If love is what you feel, you can’t promise to love someone forever, because you can’t predetermine your feelings for eternity. But you can promise to give, to accept, to appreciate, to commit… those are choices we make every day.
@iyhby
I suspect the part of that study is because they’re looking at the wider population, you know the regular world where having a job is still considered important.
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