Residential Propinquity and Marital Selection: A Review of Theory, Method, and Fact

A review of the development, method & fact in the area of residential propinquity & marital selection & an 'attempt to synthesize past work into a middle range theory.' Bossard's generalization has 2 error producing limitations: 'same address' & 'address-mobility' errors. The 'norm-segregation' & 'interaction-time-cost' theories, with the addition of Stouffer's intervening opportunities postulate, are synthesized into a 'norm-interaction' theory. The basic assumptions of this theory are: (1) 'That marriage is normative, (2) that, within normative fields of eligibles, the probability of marriage varies directly with the probability of interaction, (3) that the probability of interaction is proportional to the ratio of opportunities at a given distance over intervening opportunities.' A bibliog. T. Tannenbaum.