GENDER BASED POTENTIAL MATE PREFERENCES AMONG EMERGING ADULTS

Emerging adulthood is a new developmental period characterized by delay in marriage which enables individuals to devote more time for various life decisions including matters related to marriage and mate preferences. The study was taken up to examine the mate preferences of male and female emerging adults of Dharwad, Karnataka. The Mate Preference Scale (Buss et al, 2013)was completed by a sample of 670 undergraduates in the age group of 18 to 26 years who were drawn out randomly from eleven colleges of Dharwad Taluk. The mean age at preferred age to marry for male was 27.84 years and for female it was 25.80 years. The study showed that males place higher value on good looks, relative to females and females place high value on resource potential, relative to males. The characteristics linked with resource acquisition such as college graduate, good earning capacity, favorable social status, ambitious and industriousness were desired more by the females than males. Good house keeper on the other hand was preferred more by males compared to females. However, good looks and good financial prospects typically didn't rank in the top most desired characteristics for either gender. In fact, kind and understanding, healthy and intelligent toped the ranking irrespective of gender.