Materialism not a good match for marriage: study Mon Mar 5, 2007 1:22PM EST
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - People who put a lot of weight on luxury vacations or designer decor may end up not being the perfect match in marriage, according to U.S. research.
Wives or husbands who place high value on possessions are more likely to experience financial problems, which puts a strain on the relationship, according to the first study analyzing how material satisfaction affected marriage.
[WS:] I guess it is all about expectations, not materialism per se. Material prosperity fosters growing expectation which at certain point start diverging from the material reality's capacity to meet those expectations, and the growing gap between those expectation and reality causes strain. I recall the so-called J-curve theory making that argument and applying to explain a breakdown of social order. The idea there was if the gap between ever growing expectations and reality is already high, even a slightest decrease in the material conditions can precipitate a breakdown.
This can be further demonstrated by the fact that couples that are not materialistic but still have high expectations about what the relationship or the partner will do for them, are still prone to split ups. Even reaching a plateau in an otherwise good relationship, which is normal after some time, is seen as an unacceptable "decline" in the relationship and may precipitate a split-up.
This is, BTW, precisely what is going with my current marriage. We were both non-materialistic, and a good relationship, yet had high expectations which were difficult to meet. Consequently, her abandoning her native environment of the suburban PA and moving to Baltimore, a small thing in the great scheme of life, was the straw that broke the camels' back - a relatively small change that exacerbated an already existing strain (due to expectations), which led to the split-up.
So to sum it up, it is not materialism or any other ideology per se, but expectations tied to it and a strain that the gap between these expectation and reality produces that are at fault here.
Wojtek