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Abdallah Mohammed Badahdah, Kathleen A. Tiemann

• 1. Introduction

• 2. Method

• 3. Results

• 4. Discussion

• References

• Copyright

1. Introduction

The study of sex difference on human mate preferences has a long history. Pioneering researchers in this area (e.g., Christensen, 1947, Kirkpatrick, 1936) noted that certain characteristics were highly valued and sought by men, while others were sought and valued by women. They discovered that men preferred young and good looking women, while women tended to value older men and those with high social status. While the majority of these mate selection studies focus on Western societies, more recent studies have expanded not only the populations being studied but on the theories tested. Cross-cultural studies (e.g., Hollander, 2004) are scarce, despite their value in testing evolution-based hypotheses. The present study is aimed mainly at expanding some the findings reported by the international study of Buss (1989). We do so by content analyzing a sample of personal advertisements placed on a Muslim matrimonial web site.

Baber (1936) conducted one of the earliest studies on mate selection criteria. He found that 79% of the females versus 32% of the males were willing to marry someone who was not good looking. Seventy-six percent of the males said they would marry someone less intelligent or educated than themselves compared with only 18% of the females. Moreover, 75% of the males said that they preferred a mate who was younger than themselves, whereas 94% of the females wanted an older mate.

More than 40 years later, Harrison and Saeed (1977) did a content analysis of 800 “lonely hearts” advertisements and found that women were more likely than men to advertise their attractiveness, wanted financial security, sought someone who was older, and expressed concerns about the potential partner's motives. Men, however, were more likely than women to advertise their financial status, indicate their interest in marriage, and seek an attractive partner who was younger than them.

A creative and recent project by Gottschall, Martin, Quish, and Rea (2004) conducted a content analysis of 658 traditional folktales from 48 cultures, focusing on the plot and character summaries from 240 representative works of classic Western literature. They discovered that male characters were more likely than female characters to be presented as valuing physical attractiveness in mates, while female characters were depicted as valuing a potential mate's wealth, social standing, or both.

In short, the extant literature on mate choices shows great consistency; men generally prefer physically attractive women and women who are younger than them. In contrast, women tend to prefer men who are successful and older than them.

The findings of these and other studies on sex differences on human mating strategies are remarkable in their consistency when one considers the divergent theoretical and methodological approaches used (Feingold, 1990, Feingold, 1992).

On the theoretical level, there is an ongoing debate about which perspective offers a more persuasive interpretation for these apparent sex differences in mate preference (Eagly & Wood, 1999). Theoretical perspectives used in the mate preference literature range from a sociocultural perspective, which uses exchange theory, feminist approaches, or gender-role stereotypes (e.g., Cameron, Oskamp, & Sparks, 1977), to postmodern sociological approach (e.g., Jagger, 1998) and to those that take an evolutionary psychology perspective.

Supporters of evolutionary interpretations argue that sociocultural explanations, while not necessarily wrong, are incomplete. They suggest that a woman's physical appearance is linked to age and health, which, in turn, is a significant indicator of her reproductive capabilities. Because men want to ensure that their genes are passed to another generation, physical attractiveness is important to them. Other physical features, such as breast size, body fat distribution, and waist-to-hip ratio, have also been examined for their roles in defining female attractiveness (Singh & Young, 1995). In contrast to men, women focus on the social status and earning capabilities of potential mates. Because women are expected to be responsible for childbearing and child-rearing, men with access to and control over resources that women can use for themselves and their children are highly desirable. Thus, in the ensuing competition for mates, men display their earning capacity and social status, while women emphasize their attractiveness.

Of the many published evolutionary guided studies, the test of Buss (1989) of several evolutionary hypotheses in 37 cultures is especially useful. He collected his data via a questionnaire with fixed responses that limited the respondents' abilities to express their personal preferences. Consequently, we do not know what attributes that people might have said they value in potential mates in a less structured situation. This limitation not withstanding, Buss's cross-cultural study became a landmark in the literature of human mating. The majority of the subsequent criticisms of this study focused on the potential impact of cultural, social, and environmental conditions on mate choices, which raised exciting questions for Buss and for other researchers. In particular, we are interested in the comment of Gladue (1989)on Buss's work, which suggests that considering Buss' data by predominant religion instead of by country might tell us more about diversity than geography alone. Put somewhat simply, one's identity as a Muslim, Christian, atheist, or agnostic may be more telling and influential than the fact that someone lives in Saudi Arabia or Korea. This critique offered by Gladue is the impetus for the present paper, in which we study personal advertisements placed by Muslims who live in the United States.

2. Method

Most of the studies we cited earlier analyzed “lonely hearts” advertisements placed in newspapers and magazines. However, a small number of studies have content analyzed personal advertisements placed on the World Wide Web. In the past, people who placed and answered personal advertisements were reported to experience embarrassment and hid their behavior from everyone, except to close friends (Darden & Koski, 1988). Nowadays, however, personal advertisements and websites dedicated to dating are extensively used. According to Kornblum (2004) in April 2004, more than 25 million people visited online dating sites, which might suggest that the stigma associated with using these services has waned. Online dating sites are particularly useful for people who find it difficult to find a partner due to occupational demands, geographical location, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation. Muslims in the United States, both conservative and liberal, have used online matchmaking services dedicated to helping them make a match with other Muslims.

Methodologically speaking, some researchers have questioned the representativeness of those who place “lonely hearts” advertisements (e.g., Dupre, 1992) and, hence, the generalizability of the findings. Others disagreed and suggested that personal advertisements are ecologically valid, unobtrusive, and advantageous to psychometric scaling (Lynn & Bolig, 1985, Thiessen et al., 1993). In the present study, we encountered one advertisement that reads “Honestly, I am not very comfortable placing this ad on here because I do not exactly approve of this method all the way.” This might be an indication that there is a stigma attached to placing personal advertisements online among Muslims, which, in turn, limits the generalizability of our findings. Another limitation is that computer illiterate people and those who lack access to the Internet are not represented in our study.

The source of data for the present study came from Al-Usrah.com, which is devoted to Muslims' social and religious affairs. The website has a section dedicated to marriage called “Muslim Matrimonials.” As of February 25, 2004, when we drew our sample, the website contained a total of 7481 active personal advertisements placed by people from around the world (64.7% placed by men and 35.3% placed by women). We took a random sample of 250 of the advertisements that were placed by males and another 250 advertisements placed by females. The oldest advertisement in our sample was placed September 20, 1999, and the newest was dated February 25, 2004.

We used six exclusionary criteria for these advertisements. First, we limited our selection to advertisements placed by singles (never married, divorced, and widowed). Second, advertisements had to be placed by individuals who already live in the United States to minimize the number of advertisements motivated only by the desire to secure a visa. Third, we excluded advertisements not written in English. Fourth, the advertisements had to be placed by the advertiser and not by a parent, friend, or other relative. The final two criteria we used excluded advertisements that lacked descriptions in the body of the message and duplicate advertisements. We assumed that the purpose of placing the advertisement was a long-term relationship (i.e., marriage) because dating for unengaged people and nonmarital sex are forbidden in Islam. This assumption is based on the basic teaching of Islam and further corroborated by the frequent explicit references made by advertisers. Implementing these criteria produced a final sample of 475 advertisements (48.4% placed by males and 51.6% placed by females). Ages ranged from 19 to 63 years for men and from 15 to 58 years for women. The mean age for males and females was similar at 30.31 (S.D.=6.76.3) and 30.88 (S.D.=8.209), respectively, with no significant difference between them (t=.827, df=473, ns). The majority of the advertisers described themselves as never married (97.8% of the men and 95.5% of the women). The remaining advertisements (3.4%) were placed by divorced people.

The coding system used in this study resembles the schemes used by other researchers (e.g., Greenlees & McGrew, 1994). Each author independently coded 250 advertisements. The intercoder reliability ranged from a high of 100% agreement for categories such as age and height to a low of 82% for emotion, religion, and social skills. The parts of the advertisements that pertain to self-presentation and to the characteristics offered by the advertisers were coded into seven categories (education, height, physical attractiveness, finance, emotion, religion, and social skills). Religion was a new category created for this study. In this category, explicit reference to Islam and the use of religious expressions were seen as indications of the importance of religion not only in a future mate, but in the presentation of self. Eight categories, the aforementioned seven categories in addition to the preferred age of potential mate, were used to code the characteristics sought in potential mate.

The content of each advertisement was coded dichotomously. Therefore, when a reference was made to a salient category like religion, it was coded as either present or absent. Albeit rare, in some cases, the advertisers described themselves and then asked for a mate who possessed similar characteristics. In this case, all the attributes listed by the advertisers were also coded as attributes requested in a partner.

3. Results

Table 1 presents the seven characteristics that advertisers used to present themselves to potential mates. Of these seven characteristics, six showed statistically significant sex differences. Moreover, five of the six characteristics were mentioned more often by women than by men. Women were more likely than men to use religious terms to depict themselves (χ2=41.432, df=1, p<.0001). Additionally, social skills, which were represented by words like creative, intelligent, and easygoing, were used more often by women than by men (χ2=26.052, df=1, p<.0001). Men revealed their educational attainment far less than women did in their advertisements (χ2=13.046, df=1, p<.0001). Further analysis revealed that, when divided into four age groups (15–29, 30–39, 40–49, and 50+), the younger the female, but not the male, the more likely she was to report her educational attainment (χ2=9.765, df=3, p<.05).

Table 1. Characteristics advertisers used to describe themselves

		Males (%)	Females (%)	Pearson χ2	p level
		(n=230)	(n=245)
	Religion	61.7	87.3	41.432	<.0001
	Social skills	29.6	52.7	26.052	<.0001
	Education	37.0	53.5	13.046	<.0001
	Sincerity/emotions	31.3	44.9	9.275	<.001
	Physical attractiveness	11.3	18.0	4.181	<.05
	Finance	49.6	33.1	13.353	<.0001
	Height	30.0	22.9	3.121	.077

Women were more likely than men to use emotional adjectives to present themselves. Specifically, women often described themselves as faithful, loving, sensitive, and honest (χ2=9.275, df=1, p<.001). Using the same four age groups as above (15–29, 30–39, 40–49, and 50 and older) we found that younger female advertisers tended to advertise their sincerity and described themselves in emotional terms more frequently than did older females (χ2=10.509, df=3, p<.05). The same pattern with age was observed for males (χ2=18.643, df=3, p<.0001).

Women were also more likely than men to describe themselves as physically attractive (χ2=4.181, df=1, p<.05), while men (χ2=13.353, df=1, p<.0001) surpassed women in referring to their financial situation. Men and women did not differ significantly in reference to their height.

Table 2 shows the eight characteristics that advertisers considered desirable in potential partners. Seventy-three percent of the advertisers used religious adjectives such as God fearing, pious person, obeying God, deen (Arabic for faith), Akhirah (Arabic for the day of judgment), and hijab (Arabic for veil) to describe what they desired in a mate. Of the eight characteristics examined, the top three, religion, emotion, and social skills, were the same for men and women. The percentage of women and men who listed each characteristic differed, with women mentioning each trait more often than men did. Women (86.5%) more than men (58.7%) described desirable potential partners by invoking one of the aforementioned religious adjectives. A greater percentage of women than men asked for partners who are sincere and caring and placed greater importance on attaining mates who possessed social skills. Additional analysis using the same four age groups revealed that younger males, but not females, offered more information about their social skills than did older males (χ2=10.989, df=3, p<.05).

Table 2. Characteristics sought in a potential partner

		Males (%)	Females (%)	Pearson χ2	p level
		(n=230)	(n=245)
	Religion	58.7	86.5	46.691	<.0001
	Social skills	20.0	67.8	109.480	<.0001
	Education	10.4	30.2	28.314	<.0001
	Sincerity/emotions	29.1	74.3	96.983	<.0001
	Physical attractiveness	10.9	8.2	1.013	.314
	Finance	3.0	23.7	42.745	<.0001
	Height	3.5	13.1	14.127	<.0001
	Younger mate	19.6	1.6	85.33	<.0001

Educational achievement and height of potential partners were often mentioned in women's but not in men's advertisements (χ2=28.314, df=1, p<.0001 and χ2=14.127, df=1, p<.0001, respectively). Women were nearly eight times more likely than men to ask for mates who were financially secure. Analysis also revealed that men are nearly 10 times more likely than women to be interested in mates younger than themselves (χ2=85.33, df=1, p<.0001). Some studies (e.g., Kenrick & Keefe, 1992) found that men prefer younger mates as they grow older. Testing this in our study, using the four age groups (15–29, 30–39, 40–49, and 50 and older), our analysis revealed no difference between these four age groups in their preference for younger women. Men and women did not significantly differ in references to the physical attractiveness of their preferred partners.

Women, as shown in Table 1, Table 2, mentioned or requested certain characteristics, with some exception, at a far higher percentage rate than men did. We used the word count capability of Microsoft Word to count the number of words in each advertisement and found that women wrote longer messages (M=143.26, S.D.=94.414) than men did (M=122.50, S.D.=94.29; t=2.397, df=473, p<.05). One of the few studies we were able to locate that considered the length of advertisements, by sex, was published by Davis (1990). He compared the number of lines written by men and women in 328 personal advertisements taken from a Canadian newspaper. Unlike us, Davis found no statistically significant sex difference in the length of advertisement placed. One possible interpretation of our finding is that women, more than men, tend to be socioemotional in their orientation (rapport talk), ask more questions, and more expressive (Colley & Todd, 2002). Also, one could argue that the length of advertisements written by women is an indication that they take long-term relationships more seriously than men do. As Rajecki, Bledsoe, and Rasmussen (1991) documented that a longer and thoughtful message may be more alluring to potential mates than are shorter ones. Indeed, they found that long advertisements received more replies than short advertisements do. The sex difference in the length of the advertisements in the present study is irrelevant, because we coded only whether the characteristic was mentioned by the advertiser.

4. Discussion

We speculate that the key reason behind the lack of sex differences in the desire for physically attractive mates and the small number of advertisers who mentioned their physical attractiveness (n=70 advertisements) and requested physically attractive partners (n=45) lies at the heart of Islamic teachings which emphasize modesty. It is reported that the Prophet of Islam said, “A woman is married for four things; her wealth, her family status, her beauty and her religion. So you should marry the religious woman (otherwise) you will be a loser” (Khan, n.d.). The Qur'an also says “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that will make for greater purity for them: and Allah is well acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof” (Holy Qur'an: English translation of the meanings and commentary, n.d., pp. 24, 30–31).

Religiosity was one of the most frequently offered and highly requested qualities by the advertisers. Religiosity may be used by the advertisers as an indictor of their control over their sexuality, which is important and highly valued in Islamic culture. The women in this study were more likely to describe themselves as religious than were the men. Sociologists of religion believe that this is universal across the centuries, regardless of the type of religious organization or belief system, age, or race (Miller, 2000). The question is, why do women tend to be more religious than men? One interpretation argues that the higher level of religiosity among women is attributable to women's structural location in society. That is, one's location in the social structure plays a powerful role in shaping one's behavior, outlook, and life chances. Women are culturally expected to stay home to be caregivers and homemakers, while men are expected to participate in the paid labor force and be breadwinners. Consequently, women's low participation in the labor force when compared with men's provides them with more time and opportunity to participate in religious activities (Miller & Hoffman, 1995). Moreover, religion provides opportunities to achieve prestige in the community through the unpaid work done in and for their religious community.

Another perspective proposes that differential socialization is responsible for sex differences in religiosity. Women, more than men, are socialized to be passive, emotional, submissive, and sensitive, traditional gender attributes correlated with religiosity (Miller, 2000). Within this tradition, Thompson (1991) suggests that sex differences in religiosity are the result of one's gender role orientation and not of sex per se. Starting from the assumption that religion is a “feminine” institution, he proposed and demonstrated that a feminine gender orientation, as opposed to a masculine gender role orientation, is the cause of differences in religiosity. Indeed, respondents in his study who scored higher on the feminine dimension of the Bem Sex Role Inventory also tended to be more religious, regardless of their sex.

Another interpretation is suggested by Miller and Hoffmann (1995), who believed that sex differences in risk preferences are related to differences in religiosity. According to Miller and Hoffmann, being irreligious is a form of risk taking because of the consequences, according to many organized religions, including Islam, are severe (e.g., going to Hell). Hence, the greater prevalence of irreligiosity among men can be explained by their propensity to take risks.

The results of this study demonstrated that human mating strategies are diverse and too complex to be explained from only one theoretical perspective. We concur with Geary, Vigil, and Byrd-Craven (2004), who encouraged scholars to appreciate the contribution of evolutionary psychology perspectives to the study of human mate choices and other reproductive and sexual behavior without ignoring the contributions of other perspectives.

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University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202, United States

Corresponding author. Department of Sociology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202, United States.

PII: S1090-5138(04)00111-4

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.12.005

© 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.