How to Pick a Mate: The Guide to a Happy Marriage

Chapter XII
Now, See How You Match as a Couple!

In the last chapter you—and perhaps a testing partner—took ten tests to determine your individual chances of achieving happiness in marriage. The tests recorded your rating on nine important personality traits and on your family background.

Now we will see how well matched you are. It is possible that you can get a rough idea how well you are matched to an absentee person without having him take any of the tests in these two chapters. Suggestions for procedure in such a case are given at the end of this chapter. However, it is much more desirable, if you want a really accurate picture, to have the other person take the tests and do the matching with you.

The matching of you two will be based not only on the scores you made in the ten tests just taken and your total score on the tests, but also on ten other factors which we have found are important in predicting marital success. They include such things as age, education, length of courtship and tendency to quarrel. These factors together with your test results will present an accurate over-all picture of your compatibility for marriage, or lack of it. And incidentally a “matching” of two people is not as important when both the man and the girl made a high score (above four hundred) in the ten tests just taken as it is if one made a low score and the other a high score, or if both made low scores.

First of all let’s pair up your scores on those ten tests in the last chapter to see what your scores mean on each trait when they are paired together.

Trait I is a sociability factor. You can see how two people, one who is sociable and something of a gadabout and the other a home-body who isn’t sociable, might not be well matched. Both should be sociable and like to go out and be with people, or both should be fireside toasters, home-loving souls who enjoy being alone with each other.

Trait II is a measure of conformity, of agreeableness to others, and conscientiousness. While it is better for both to score high on this trait, if one scores low, it is better that the other score high.

Trait III is a measure of tranquillity or lack of irritability. While it is better for both to score high, if one scores low, it is important that the other should score high, or there may be considerable bickering and angry feelings.

Trait IV is a measure of dependability, frankness, and willingness to accept responsibility. This trait is of great importance to happiness of both men and women, and it is especially important that a girl score high here. Both should score high, but if one scores low, it is quite important that the other score high.

Trait V is a measure of stability. Our research shows that it is of the greatest importance that the two people make about the same scores on this test. While it is better for both to be high, it is more crucial that the girl make a high score, be very stable, than it is for the man.

Trait VI is a measure of standards and ideals. Both should have high scores but it is more important that the man have a good score than the girl because girls have been trained to have higher ideals than men. If one mate has a very low score, then the other by all means should have a high score. That combination will provide a balance wheel.

Trait VII is a measure of steadiness and freedom from excess emotionality. While more important that the man score high, because in most cases he will be the income earner, both should make about the same scores.

Trait VIII is a measure of flexibility and adaptability. While average to high scores are important, and while agreement or about the same scores are desirable, if one must score low it is better for the man to do so than for the woman.

Trait IX is a measure of thoughtfulness and consideration. This is a much more important trait for women than for men, yet at the same time, marriage happiness is definitely promoted by both making about the same scores.

Trait X is important for either the man or the woman, because it measures the family background of both people. It is important that both score as high as possible on this trait. It is even more important for the girl to score high than it is for the man. But if either mate should score low, it is most important that the other score high.

To sum up, it is important that both people make about the same scores on sociability (I), conformity (II), dependability (IV), stability (V) idealism (VI), flexibility (VIII) and seriousness (IX), and the higher the better. If one scored low on the other three (tranquillity, steadiness and family background) it is important that the other score high.

But how can you get a more detailed, concrete picture of your compatibility, or lack of it? On the following pages you are going to see your degree of compatibility emerge from a series of twenty-one figures. When those twenty-one figures are totaled you will have your answer.

Instructions

First glance over these “Do You Match?” tables on the next few pages to familiarize yourself with them. In the twenty-one blocks you will match yourselves on the ten traits already tested, you will match your total scores on those traits and then in the last ten will match yourself on ten other factors.

Take the very first item, “Test I.” This matches you on sociability. Suppose the man had an adjusted score of twenty-seven when he took the sociability test in the last chapter and the girl had a score of twenty-four. Look over the five alternative combinations to see where such a scoring fits. It fits in combination (d) so you should write a credit of three points in the block on the right. On “Test II,” suppose the man made an adjusted score of eighteen and the girl of seven. That’s a big difference. Since no such combination is shown, write a zero in the block.

DO YOU MATCH?

TOTAL TEST SCORE

(Total of all ten tests as scored in Chapter XI)

Now score your compatibility on the ten additional factors following and fill the proper credits in the blocks just as you have been doing. On factors 7, 8 and 9 bear in mind that you cannot count as a part of your acquaintanceship, courtship or engagement any period of time of three months or longer when you did not see each other, as is the case where a man was overseas.

Now, you have twenty-one scores and a Total Final Score. Let us see what this score means.

If the Total Final Score for you two is 250 or above, then you would seem to be very well matched. Furthermore, it would appear that you two people should be quite happy in marriage. If there are no unfavorable factors present such as poor physical health, or inability to make a living, and if you two people are really deeply in love, then your marriage should be a happy one.

If the final score is 200 to 249, you would still seem to be fairly well matched. If there are no unfavorable factors, if both of you are old enough for marriage, if both of you are determined to make it work, you should be happier than is the average couple.

If your final score is 150 to 199, the outlook would not seem to be too favorable. Your marriage might not be as happy as that of the average couple. Why not wait another six months? Give yourselves time to see what some of your problems are. Do something active about them. It may help you to talk things over with a marriage counselor, or with your minister, or somebody else whom you trust and who is mature enough to help you analyze the situation.

If your score is 149 or less, then it would seem that you two people should put off marriage for six months or perhaps a year or longer. You can be sure there are some factors present that should make you stop, look, and listen. Perhaps both of you are not well adjusted as separate personalities, or to each other. Maybe you are of radically different religions, or your parents are opposed to your marriage. Perhaps you need to have a much longer period of courtship or engagement. Whatever the reason, you should talk the matter over with some person competent to advise you. See a good marriage counselor or psychologist who specializes in guidance. Talk things over with your minister, rabbi, or priest. You don’t want to make a mistake and have an unhappy marriage that might terminate in separation or divorce.

Of course you can say, and correctly, that you have little or no responsibility for some of the factors, such as the lack of happiness in your parents’ marriage. Even though this may be the case, you have been affected or influenced by the presence or absence of happiness in your own home.

What are some concrete suggestions that may help you bring about a happy marriage even though one of you, or the two of you, may not have made scores typical of young couples who get married and are happy? These suggestions may be of help to you:

1. If you are introverted (unsociable), you should increase the number of social skills that you have. Oftentimes we find that our enjoyment from association with other people is increased greatly when we learn to do some of the things they do, such as dance, bowl, swim, etc. Try to be outstanding in something.

2. Acquire a philosophy of life. What are your beliefs and views? Are you a conservative or a radical in politics, religion, ethics? Are there some guiding principles in your life? If you aren’t sure, sit down with yourself and try to figure out what you believe in and practice. Check it against your own behavior. Do you say one thing and do another? Are your family and friends rather sure about what you believe in, or do they have trouble predicting what you will do next?

3. Is your temper explosive, unruly, and peevish? Why do you get angry? If it is because you feel inferior, why do you feel inferior? Can’t you do something about it? Do you honestly try to control your temper?

4. Are you unstable, fearful, nervous? Why? Is it because you feel you are unattractive or ignorant, or are you carrying around feelings of guilt and uneasiness about something you feel ashamed of? If it is your physical health, see your physician. If it is your mental health, see a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. Develop a trusting confidential relationship with someone, preferably an older person, with whom you can feel free to unburden yourself.

5. Are your standards and ideals too low, or too high, when compared to your behavior? Perhaps you are an intolerant and prejudiced person who is too narrow-minded and prudish. Are you critical and gossipy about many of the things your acquaintances do? Do you know whether you have set your standards impossibly high; so high that you have a constant feeling of frustration because you are always falling short?

6. Are you an emotional person, always going off on a tangent, never able to keep a steady course? Is it because you aren’t in the work you want to do? Can’t you change jobs? Perhaps you are confused in your thinking, disturbed about religion, morals, things that are right or wrong. Have you asked your friends their ideas? Do you keep busy? Have you talked things over with your pastor? Is there some serious frustration always hanging over your head? Why don’t you sit down, take stock of yourself? It is only by an inventory of ourselves, accompanied by a searching analysis, that we discover what is wrong and see ways to clear things up.

7. Are you so set in your ways that you cannot see that “circumstances alter cases?” Do you earnestly try to adapt yourself to people and new situations or do you expect all the adaptation to come from somebody else? Perhaps you are smug, never have a new idea. Try reading a Republican newspaper if you never read anything but a Democratic paper. Go to a different church. Get out of the rut you are in. Listen to other people’s ideas for a change. Don’t be so cocksure that you are always right and the other fellow always wrong.

8. Do you ever sit down and think? Reflect about yourself, your friends, your activities, your responsibilities? Do you stop and ask yourself if you are selfish and inconsiderate? Do you sympathize with others, try to avoid saying things that may hurt somebody’s feelings? Do you build up people rather than tear down? Do you go out of your way to help others?

9. If you and your prospective mate are constantly quarreling, have you stopped asking whose fault it is and started doing your best to prevent conflicts? Unless you two people settle your problems by compromise and mutual give-and-take, your marriage future looks dark.

10. Did you get engaged shortly after you first met? In most real love, an engagement rarely occurs before the couple have known and dated each other regularly for at least a year or longer.

11. Are you sure it is love? Could it be just loneliness, a desire to escape an unpleasant environment? Are you sure it isn’t a “phantasy ideal?”

12. Why don’t your parents approve this marriage? After all, they may have something. Look back in the past—weren’t they right many times then when you thought they were wrong? Unless your friends warmly approve this marriage, your parents are probably right in urging you to wait.

13. Do you really know your mate? What makes one a good date doesn’t usually make one a good mate. Although an hour’s enjoyment of dancing, going to the movies, etc. may be wonderful pastime, it may be far from what you need in a mate. Are you sure what you want in a mate is what you need? Are you sure that what you have found is what you need in a mate?

14. Last but not least is this prospective mate going to be the sort of parent you want your children to have?

When you have finished asking yourself these questions, you will probably have some good ideas what to do if you and your mate didn’t make a score above average. Take your time. It is easier to get married than it is to get separated or divorced, and much easier on one’s disposition in the long run. You want to marry but we want you to make a good choice and to find in marriage all the happiness and contentment that it can bring.

Procedure If You Are Doing the Matching Alone

Some readers may wish to see how they match with another person but would prefer to do the matching without consulting him. That can be done, though of course it will be much less accurate. Use the “Do You Match?” tables in this chapter, just as couples working together did. You won’t have much trouble scoring the last ten of the twenty-one items since they are based on known facts. Your greatest problem will be in estimating the scores your mate would make in the ten tests on personality traits. Your estimates will necessarily be rough approximations; but if you have known this person for several months you may have a fair idea how he would answer the various questions in those tests and estimate scores for him accordingly. Be rigidly honest when you imagine the answers this person would make. You can double-check your compatibility with such an absentee person by taking the following short test. It is a greatly abbreviated check on compatibility.

ARE YOU WELL MATED?