JC
An article in the New York Times explores online matchmaking and explains that couples where partners are actually more similar than not, are the ones that actually stay together for a longer amount of time.

During the first five years of marriage, the divorce rate for a couple of the same religion hovers around 24 percent, no matter what that religion is. But it jumps to 38 percent for a marriage between a mainline Protestant and a Catholic and 42 percent for one between a Jew and a Christian, according to Evelyn L. Lehrer, an economist at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Divorce rates are also somewhat higher for interracial couples and for couples with a wife who is at least four years older than her husband. (When the man is a lot older, on the other hand, divorce is no more likely than when spouses are about the same age.)

This is a bit depressing, because it sounds almost like an excuse for segregation. But take the data for what they are — national averages, not individual destinies — and averages are quite useful when thousands of people are involved. Chemistry and eHarmony both match people with similar demographic profiles.

But the article asks the important question — where do similarities really matter? When it comes to religion and ethnicity? Or should we aim to find commonality when it comes to personality type? I would of course argue for the latter. Just because you are with someone of the exact same religion and/or ethnicity does not mean that everything will be peaches and cream. And it’s also naive to think that you will be more compatible with someone of your same “background” merely because you are the same in that respect. People are multi-dimensional, and many factors figure into compatibility.

Back to the numbers though…I think that the way it is phrased it sounds like, “oh these kinds of relationships can’t work out.” It makes me wonder how many failed due to external pressures….I’m not trying to point fingers and blame the unblame-able (e.g. “society did it to them!”) but, we do need to remember that still, in many ways, our society is not completely accepting to mixed couples. This can play a role in the success of a relationship (not necessarily a huge role for all, but it does have some impact).