Intra-professional marriage: mate choices of medical students in India.
The desire to marry a doctor varied between male and female students at a medical school in India. The females' inclination was significantly stronger than that of males. Also, females were more likely than males to perceive their parents desire to arrange such a marriage for them. The correlation between students' desire to find a marriage match and the students' perception of such a desire in their parents, was higher for females than for males. A follow-up of the selected women students showed that a majority of those who expressed a desire to marry a doctor were in fact so married. Three explanations are advanced for this marriage pattern: (a) Status-congruency, which assumes that the higher status conferred on females by a medical education can best be maintained by marrying within the profession. (b) The second refers to the perceived complementarity between intra-professional marriage and the enactment of professional role (c) The third refers to the socialization of women medical students to prefer this marriage pattern.
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D010822:Physicians, Women; D013337:Students, Medical