In-law choice and the search for similarity

Across cultures and across time, parents have exercised considerable influence over their children's mate choices, and they strive to get daughters- and sons-in-laws endowed with desirable qualities. Successful integration in the family unit requires also some degree of similarity in these qualities. On this basis, we hypothesize that parents prefer in-laws who are similar to them and to their children in a range of traits. We further hypothesize that parents ascribe more importance in similarity over some traits than over others. Evidence from a sample consisting of 554 parents provides support for both hypotheses. We have also found that parents prefer their prospective sons-in-law to be more similar to their daughters than their prospective daughters-in-law to their sons, and they prefer their prospective daughters-in-law to be more similar to them than their prospective sons-in-law. In addition, parents prefer their prospective in-laws to be more similar to their children than to them, while the preferences for similarity are independent of the parent's sex. The implications of these findings are further discussed.