Paul Dennis Sporer / Writings / Articles

Marriage and Shyness
by Paul Dennis Sporer

To first understand the processes of courtship, the main regulators of the phenomenon must be sought. We can observe that courtship length is a common factor in many aspects of this process, including level of emotional intimacy, finances, family relations, and organisation of life plans. Economic, cultural or personal factors are mainly responsible for the length of courtship, and the rules of courtship can be both causes and effects. When the process is longer, greater attention can be given to developing understanding of the other's personality and needs, greater closeness can be achieved, and greater augmentation of material resources is possible. If a particular social situation requires waiting a long period, then the sexes must be rather aloof; if they were not, early infatuation and love interest could spark early marriage (if premarital sex is strongly condemned). However, where the 'ideal' material life can be reached quickly (standards are low, and/or the economy is doing extremely well), then such a sex division is not necessary. In this culture it would appear that rigid general separation of the sexes (though not necessarily precluding ordinary friendship) is necessary if people are to be able to court for many years. However, this same separation encourages and facilitates independence, since one is presumably freed from early marriage. From a circle of female friends, a man chooses one that he wishes to be his wife. He and she both work and save to put together a home that is consistent with their ideals of comfort and aesthetics; when they accumulate all that is required, they then marry and move into their new residence.

What could influence the size and depth of friendship interaction? It is quite possible that the parameters of one's friendship circle are almost entirely determined by personal choice. The length of courtship in turn is thought to be influenced by the degree to which the sexes fraternise. However, if the intention is to delay marriage by restricting access between the sexes, then it does not work. They might also be culturally more predisposed to take care in going through the phases of courtship, without undue pressure. This would explain the long courtship. We could assume, therefore, that the fewer friends one has, the later one's marriage. However, we learn that among the larger Western nations, having relatively few male and female friends is associated with a lower, not greater, likelihood of later marriage. In other words, people who have few friends do not put off marriage, and people who have many friends delay marriage. Further, the strength of this relationship makes us think that this is indeed a major determining factor in late marriage. The stronger the correlation with a measured external variable, the likelier it is that a population or some segment of it is strongly affected by one variable and that one alone. Other internal influences, not easily measured, might very well be responsible for this association. This is not to say that there is not some other segment of the population that will indeed marry earlier (there is no clear correlation for marrying at ages below 30), but there is at least one segment that will see friendship as a substitute for marriage. Temperament might determine the strength of desire for opposite-sex friendship, which in turn affects marriage age.

If we accept the notion that the act of choosing one's friends is one of the freest things one can do, not affected by economic considerations, living conditions, and so on, then the possibility arises that friend choice is genetically (temperamentally) influenced. In addition, if a strong correlation between friendship choice and late marriage exists, other factors are of little or no influence; with no other factors that would work to possibly affect the choice of friends (and so indirectly marriage age) the idea that it is the product of some individual innate dynamic is strengthened. Thus, it is probable that an 'aloofness' in relations between the sexes, and indeed the courtship process as a whole, might be the product of innate ethnic genetic trait, and it is the individual's personality then that 'calls the shots'.

If male-female relations are limited in scope by personal disposition and/or social rules, and courtship is the only legitimate context in which a close friendship can take place between young men and women, then courtship would likely be extended and the saving aspect is simply the best use of this time, but not an end in itself. In addition, restraints placed on trysts between long-affianced couples might be a prudent measure to reduce the temptation to engage in sex now rather than wait for marriage. So, separation might be more necessary between engaged people than between opposite-sex friends.

Those who are introverted will presumably have fewer opposite sex friends and not marry early. An introverted individual will prefer the company of people he knows; since other persons of the same sex will be more likely to share his beliefs and attitudes, he will more likely fraternise with them than with the opposite sex. The introvert has fewer friends than the extrovert, which leads him to seek marriage, but his personality prevents facilitation of this. When he finally does find an opposite-sex close friend, he is more likely to formalise the relationship by initiating courtship, and this often leads to marriage, since he would not wish to lose this close friend. We would then think that having a greater number of opposite-sex friends would increase the likelihood of early marriage, with an extrovert having more potential partners to choose from than an introvert. Based on the above analysis, this would be logical, but further analysis reveals that this does seem to be the case. Extroversion is strongly related to having a larger number of close friends and is only modestly associated with early marriage. As mentioned above, the individual can focus on the ability of friendship to act as a substitute for marriage. Extroverts tend to have more friends than introverts, but extroversion does not lead to earlier marriage, instead leading to later marriage.
The personality trait of extroversion deals with freedom of personal relations and the width of a friendship circle. The extrovert might call upon a number of opposite sex friends for advice, comfort, and so on, not necessarily imposing himself on any one friend that much. An introvert might obtain all of his friendship from one other person; such a relationship would entail a formalisation because of the sacrifice involved. When the level of closeness and sacrifice demanded by another person crosses a threshold, the relationship then moves from friendship to romantic love interest, and to maintain it courtship must begin. However, courtship and marriage narrow the friendship circle, regardless of whether one or both people are introverted. Thus, the size of the friendship circle affects marriage, but marriage also affects the size of the friendship circle. We can now see a close connection between companionate relations and social environment.

The extrovert's tendency to speak openly and freely widens the circle of friends, making reliance on any one friend unnecessary. The same tendency, however, allows the extrovert to become very close with a one or two people in this circle, especially with the opposite sex, necessitating a reduction in the size of his circle. Naturally, the extrovert could find immense satisfaction in just one very close friendship, but he also prefers having many other friendships, admittedly shallow but nevertheless rewarding. The natural outgoingness of the extrovert makes him varied friendships, but his eye will fall on one girlfriend who recommends he forsake the others so he can spend more time with her. He experiences a widening of the circle, then a narrowing of it, and then possibly again another widening as the close friendship ends. We can formulate a general principle which describes the inherently mutually exclusive nature of the phenomenon we have been exploring. Succinctly put, it is in the extrovert's nature to desire and have many friends, but it is this wide circle and ingratiating nature that quickly allow him to gain the confidence of a single companion, who then demands more exclusive use of this time. After awhile, the temptation is then to go back to the larger circle of friends. If excessive independence is linked to excessive extroversion, as it often is in modern society, then this principle describes, in rough outline, the current struggle in relationships, the harmful tension between the outside world and the couple. Three factors—extroversion, size of friendship circle, and marriage—are critical in defining personal autonomy, as these cover personality, social and pragmatic variables.

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