SHE IS the loveliest of God's female creations. Every day, you look at her and quietly say "Wow!"
The 'Coca-Cola' bottle shape, the cute face - it's all there. She is caring, thoughtful, giving and lots of fun to be with.
She is your soulmate. She has a great time with your friends and, in short, she is all you have ever wanted in a woman - your ideal mate.
You have been friends for a while and you can't imagine your life without her. You see your future and she is there every step of the way. You are ready to pop the question. Then you remember - she has a master's degree. She is working on her Ph.D. She drives an SUV.
Right now she is working on owning her home. Her job makes her salary twice as much as yours. You remember and you stop dead in your tracks.
You stop, because you have it in the back of your mind that she is socially superior to you in many ways. You begin to wonder if the things that held you together during courtship would be strong enough to hold you through marriage.
CRISIS
Counselling psychologist Avril Le Vel James says that the unequal pairing of men and women from different social and financial backgrounds is a problem perceived as a crisis - a marriage crisisis - in Jamaican society.
"Everyone agrees that marriage should be an uplifting experience and not a downgrading one. Both men and women see marriage as a means of rising in the world.
"Rising incorporates a social and financial upliftment as well as an improvement in happiness. For some schools of thought, happiness is not achievable without the first two."
'MARRYING WELL'
If academic qualifications, social standing and affluence are used to measure lifestyle quality, if the individual is accustomed to a certain standard of living, it is fair to assume that that when joining with another, he or she will expect an equal level of these attributes in order to maintain happiness, the counsellor notes.
The counsellor also observes that "men have been socialised to be superior where income is concerned. There is a social stigma attached to men 'marrying well'. When a woman marries well it's great, but should a man do the same it is assumed that he is being kept." These perceptions are linked to the assumption that men should have superior income, be more driven and achieve more than his female counterpart.
With the gender gap at the tertiary level appearing to be widening (with approximately three times the number of female graduates as there are male), the general consensus is that women have to marry down or not marry at all. The implications of this for the maintenance of the marriage union is problematic.
NEXT WEEK: 'Marrying down - Overcoming the Stigma'. Information provided by Avril Le Vel James, counselling psychologist and an associate of Family Life Ministries in Kingston.
