IS HUMAN MATING ADVENTITIOUS OR THE RESULT OF LAWFUL CHOICE - A TWIN STUDY OF MATE SELECTION

Pairs of middle-aged twins and their spouses provided data on 74 mainl y psychological variables. Neither spousal similarity nor idiosyncrati c criteria could account for specific mate selection in these 738 coup les. Of the twins (and their spouses), 547 independently rated their i nitial attraction to their twin's mate (or to their spouses twin): Fin dings suggest that characteristics both of the chooser and the chosen constrain mate selection only weakly. This article proposes that it is romantic infatuation that commonly determines the final choice from a broad field of potential eligibles and that this phenomenon is inhere ntly random, in the same sense as is imprinting in precocial birds.