By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 14, 2008; A07
In a study involving Dutch, American and Kurdish students, psychologists in the Netherlands found that the cliche is, in fact, true....
Abraham P. Buunk, Justin H. Park and Shelli L. Dubbs at the University of Groningen, who recently published their findings in the Review of General Psychology, said the consistency of the conflict across cultures suggests the hand of evolution: Parents and offspring clash, the researchers argued, because their genetic self-interests, while overlapping, are not identical.
The reason young people care so much about intellectual and physical attractiveness, the scientists suggested, is that these characteristics are markers of genetic fitness. By contrast, they said, parents care about group affiliations because parents are primarily interested in whether an incoming member of the family is likely to make a good parent -- and a good all-around team player.
When a potential mate has both sets of qualities, parents and young people are likely to agree on the appropriateness of a match. But often, the researchers said, the qualities don't go hand in hand....
While acknowledging the role of biology in shaping human behavior, historian Stephanie Coontz argues that the researchers did not draw a clear enough distinction between love and marriage. Evolution might play a big role in shaping the reproductive drive, she says, but it would be a mistake to think that the institution of marriage has primarily been about either love or reproduction.
Until very recently, Coontz contends, children and parents were rarely in conflict about whom to marry -- they both agreed that marriage was not about love, but about social and economic ties....
"Until the 1960s, marriage was the best way a woman could invest in her economic future," Coontz said. "Now marriage is a risky proposition, especially for a low-wage woman, given her pool" of potential mates. A woman who marries someone who is an economic and social drain, in other words, might be better off single today because she can earn her own living....
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