Premium
Bachelorhood and Late Marriage: An Interactionist Interpretation *
Author(s) -
Darling Jon
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1977.1.1.44
Subject(s) - situational ethics , interview , interpretation (philosophy) , socialization , psychology , symbolic interactionism , social psychology , exploratory research , marital status , sociology , developmental psychology , gender studies , social science , anthropology , population , demography , computer science , programming language
This paper summarizes an exploratory investigation of the interactional careers of forty bachelors (men who had reached the age of 35 without marrying), twenty of whom later married. Depth interviewing was used to collect life history data establishing major career lines of specific heterosexual dyads as well as developments in preceding and paralleling universes of interaction. The findings support the contention that continuing social pressures rather than personal abnormalities of individual bachelors ultimately determine marital careers in that bachelorhood and late marriage are interactional products stemming from differential socialization and situational contingencies.