In many species, females and males form long-term mating bonds, but marriage-and especially arranged marriage-are uniquely human traits. While marriage practices impact many cultural phenomena, they also can have evolutionary (i.e., fitness) consequences. Strongly felt but not necessarily conscious mating preferences presumably evolved because they provide fitness benefits compared to random mating, and this prediction has been supported by experimental animal studies. Arranged marriage might similarly reduce fitness in humans, but only if parents regularly choose different mates for their offspring than offspring would choose for themselves. Here we report a broad ethnographic survey exploring whether parents and offspring disagree over partner choice in arranged marriages. Using the Human Relations Area Files, we reviewed 543 ethnographies to assess the relative frequencies of parent-offspring agreement and disagreement over partner choice, the reasons for disagreement, and the outcomes of disagreement. In all world areas, parents and offspring overwhelmingly choose different partners. Parents and offspring disagreed over fitness-relevant traits of the potential spouse, and both parties sometimes used extreme methods to influence outcomes. These findings suggest that arranged marriages may be useful for studying the effects of mate choice in humans and for assessing the unique dynamics of human mating systems. [parent-offspring conflict, mate choice, cross-cultural]
