When an individual (man or woman) wants to form the most important human institution ever, which is the family, he or she needs to choose a life partner based on in-depth, studied knowledge that necessarily goes beyond: attraction at first sight, coincidence, or a passing situation. He or she also needs to consult and take the opinion of adults, such as father, mother, and relatives whenever possible, and trustworthy and honest friends, and perhaps consult and guide specialized parties sometimes, or from an outsider claiming loyalty at other times, as is observed in quite a few in our environments. This is to ensure the extent of compatibility between marriage pairs and the possibility of the success of this marriage in the future.
Above all, the individual needs to return to himself, contemplate and scrutinize the characteristics of the other, study them, and compare them one by one with the desired specifications or requirements. Even if it appears to the potential marriage partners that there are many common denominators between them that are much higher than the areas of neutrality or different personal privacies, the two parties take their step to marry and form the desired family.
Choosing a partner to form a family:
In Eastern traditions in general, a person chooses his partner (wife or husband) through what is generally known as: love or admiration at first sight, or what is now being circulated among young people: love at first mobile call, email or online conversation.. The most important meaning of these means in human choice to form the most important civil institution in any society, which is the family, is the individual’s use of superficial and marginal personal criteria that are not important in determining the most important station in his social life and his social destiny in the future through marriage and family.
When the individual is satisfied in choosing his other partner for marriage and forming a family, with superficial, superficial criteria based on attraction at first sight or a personal feeling without reinforcing them with more basic, objective, logical, social and scientific criteria, the family institution collapses later with the feeling of the first lack or decrease in psychosocial compatibility between the spouses in many essential things, characteristics and needs (other than appearance and form), and with the exacerbation of conflicts between them as a result of the large differences between what each of them desires in the other person.
Consulting with specialists and experts in marriage and family formation:
Establishing the most important partnership for any individual in order to change his/her goals and lifestyle for the better as expected requires conscious, objective, and well-thought-out decisions that can only be achieved by collecting various data from realistic sources and then analyzing and interpreting this data to make the decisions required to establish a family through marriage.
These sources may be: parents, loyal close friends, and advisory bodies specialized in family guidance and counseling… which unfortunately seem rare in our local environments, noting that many of those currently working are not qualified to work by most standards except for greed in collecting money or/and seizing the benefits granted by positions in well-known official institutions?!
Referring to specialized advisory bodies for marital guidance and counseling and establishing a family seems important these days due to:
1- Many young people, especially university students, are entering into marriage not in reality to establish a family and achieve psychological and social stability, but rather for temporary intimate purposes, which often causes endless personal and legal problems, and deep social imbalances that shake the values, customs and systems of society.
2- 35% of those married for the first time and 50% of those married for the second time end up in divorce in the United States of America. As for our local environments, the problem of divorce has unfortunately begun to worsen to a noticeable degree, parallel to what is happening in the West.
3- The awareness that specialized counseling creates regarding what can be done realistically for both parties to the marriage and family, often leads to the success of both parties as husband and wife, then father and mother in the future family.
We do not advise adult youth to get married just because they experience a state of overwhelming love, but rather to return with this love (if it happens) to consult with the immediate family: the mother and father, and to study the subject in its many different details and aspects. Or in the event that the mother or/and father are not available, to present the subject to a number of direct adult relatives such as uncles, aunts, maternal uncles and maternal aunts, provided that they are distinguished by wisdom and objectivity and that there is no interest for one or some of them in obstructing the proposed marriage in order to direct it to their daughter or son, as is sometimes observed in our local environments..
With all these parties, the young man or woman can seek the opinion of a competent professor with inclinations and knowledge or a social or family counselor.. to ultimately reach a sound, long-term strategic decision, to proceed with the marriage or to refrain from it by consciously searching for another, better partner.
A scientific method for choosing a life partner for marriage and forming a family
Since the family is crucial for the stability and development of the individual and society at the same time, it is the duty of individuals who are about to adopt this important human and social responsibility: establishing a family through marriage, to adopt an objective scientific method, based on objective and statistical standards and procedures to determine the degree of possible compatibility between the two partners, husband and wife, and then between them as father and mother in the future, and thus the success of the family in its educational and social mission for the children, and then civilizational with the stability and progress of the family and society together.
We present this scientific method summarized in the following steps:
1- Determine and sort out the specifications that a person wants in his other partner for marriage and establishing a family, while trying to detail these specifications from each party (the future husband and wife) to the greatest possible degree, so that no specification, information or characteristic is excluded that may be important for the life and stability of the family in the future. While the specifications can be classified into main and important areas for the human being and his civil society with another human being through marriage and forming a family, such as:
* The biological physical field, which includes the physical and genetic biological characteristics in general,
* The psychological field, which includes the psychological characteristics in general.
* The social cultural field, which includes the individual characteristics that a person acquires due to the society and social culture through which he grows up.
2- Counting the specifications that are actually available objectively in the other party intended for marriage and family. Here, the mind and objective statistical logic must be used without emotion, kindness, mediation, or persuasion or pressure operations practiced by close or distant parties, starting with the mother and father and ending with relatives, acquaintances or friends..
3- Sorting the basic and secondary specifications into three categories:
* Common denominators that must be fully available (100%) in type and quantity in the other person
* Personal privacy that primarily concerns one party without the other in the life partner, while being positive in nature and can be accepted and enhanced by the future partner: husband or wife
* Margins of behavioral freedom, also positive.. but the father and mother can abandon them or modify them for the benefit of the other and the family whenever necessary.
4- Converting the values of the specifications available to the future partner in marriage and family into statistical ranks, degrees or percentages according to their degrees of importance to the two parties to the marriage.
5- Applying an appropriate statistical procedure or method to determine the degree of compatibility of the intended party in marriage and family with the standard specifications required from the other party.
6- Making a decision to marry and establish a family, if the percentage or degree of compatibility between the specifications observed by one party and the standard specifications required from the other party is positive and high.
Here, we emphasize that if the percentage of compatibility or correlation between the primary and secondary specifications in the areas of common denominators, privacy and margins of behavioral freedom ranges between 60-85%, then the two partners can proceed with marriage and establishing a family, because the family institution will mostly be normal at the minimum level, and superior in the upper limit of psychosocial compatibility, which is 85%.
However, if the degree or percentage of compatibility falls below 50% or exceeds 85%, then we do not recommend that the two partners get married at all in both cases. Because the family with a compatibility level of less than 50% generally lacks opportunities to come together in many things and thus achieve stability and success in life, children and the future.
On the other hand, if the compatibility level exceeds 85%, the husband or/and wife turns into a carbon copy of the other, without any noteworthy diversity, renewal or enrichment in thought, tendencies, behavior, goals and lifestyle.. which makes marital relations: routine, boring, heavy and exciting for one or both spouses to spend as much time as possible outside the home and family, in search of diversity, entertainment and psychological renewal, or to escape from the monotonous family environment.