The Preferred Partner

Abstract

“A girl from a good family, pretty and rich” – these are the three main criteria and in this order that have been cast in the extended family where I grew up and in that order – for evaluating men’s right choice of a bride. On these three qualities and their variations, I witnessed endless conversations in mutual visits between my maternal aunts, their relatives, and their friends. However, as far as the prospective husband for the family’s young women was concerned, I noticed a disregard of his family’s status and of his physical appearance, a disregard sometimes followed by the saying: “There’s nothing shameful for a man except his empty pocket”. Though these conversations addressed existing couples, they also referred to other prospective ones in which the man and woman seemed to satisfy the above-mentioned prescriptions. These prescriptions and criteria remained in my value frame of reference and in my cognitive repertoire, as fixed hypostases of unquestionable necessity.