Brit. J . Med. Psychol.
(1964), 37,43
Printed in Great Britain
Choices of marriage partners by men coming from
monosexual sibling con6gurations
BY WALTER TOMAN*
INTRODUCTION
The author has presented reasons and
empirical evidence before (Toman, 1959a-c,
196Oa-c, 1962, a, b, 1963; Toman & Gray,
1961), that certain simple and easily estab-
lished data about family constellations do
characterize persons in a number of important
areas of life and do tend to co-determine in
a traceable and statistically predictable way
their longer-term interpersonal relationships
whether they involve authority figures, peers
or dependants and children. Data about the
ages (age-ranks) and sexes of siblings, about
the ages (age-ranks) and sexes of the parents’
siblings, and about losses of parents or siblings
suffered by the person in question or his/her
parents have proven to be discriminating
among individuals and groups of individuals.
While a few other simple data such as geo-
graphic stability of home, incidents of illness,
hospitalization, travels, etc. (amounting to
temporary losses of family members) proved
discriminatory also, they shall be ignored in
this context. The data mentioned of a person’s
and his parents’ sibling configurations, on the
other hand, were found also to have explana-
tory power on the basis of a theorem into which
the author has tried to condense a multitude of
correlative trends that he has observed in his
studies : extra-familial interpersonal relation-
ships have a better chance of happiness and
lasting success, other things being equal, the
closer they duplicate early intra-familial inter-
personal relationships.
This would mean that, for example, older
brothers of sisters tend to be married best to
youngest sisters of brothers. They duplicate
* Brandeis University, Universitat
Erlangen-Numberg.
43
for each other by seniority-juniority and by
sex a peer relationship they have had at home.
The same would hold of youngest brothers of
sisters when married to oldest sisters of
brothers. Poorer prospects would prevail for
oldest brothers of brothers married to oldest
sisters of sisters. They would have a rank- and
sex-contlict. Neither is used to living with a
peer of the opposite sex and both would try to
dominate the other. The same would hold for
marriages between youngest brothers of
brothers and youngest sisters of sisters, except
that both would try forever to find leadership
in the other. The chances for partners to a
relationship who come from larger and more
complicated sibling configurations (who have,
for example, both brothers and sisters, older
and younger siblings) tend to be better, other
things being equal, if they duplicate for one an-
other at least one of their siblingrelationships.
This rule would hold ,equally for losses.
Their most general psychologicalconsequence
is an expectation that they can happen again.
Under certain conditions this expectation may
operate like a wish. In either case the net effect
for the person would be a more or less di-
minished freedom in the appraisal and selec-
tion of opportunities for longer-range inter-
personal relationship as well as in actual
choicesmade. Not infrequently a person who is
bound to disappear again is chosen,in the first
place.
The most decisive among a number of
systematic tests of the duplication-theorem
was the comparison of ‘happily married’ and
divorced couples. In all of the author’s studies
as well as in this one, happiness and success of
an interpersonal relationship was defined by
simple true-to-life criteria rather than by those
established via psychological ‘instruments’,
44 WALTERTOMAN
such as tests. In this case ‘happy marriage’ and youngest brothers of brothers. Having no
meant married for at least ten years and being sisters for peers those men are theoretically
parents of at least two children. It was found expected to choose as best they can at least by
that monosexual sibling configurations and rank. Oldest brothers would tend to choose
rank-conflicts predominated in number among younger sisters for wives and youngest
the divorced partners, whereas a majority of brothers would tend to choose older sisters.
‘happily married ’ partners were well-matched However, the men’s mothers having been the
by criteria outlined. More often than chance only females in their original families (from
older brothers of sisters had married younger whom they would at least start learning how to
sisters of brothers, and younger brothers of deal with women), those mothers may also
sisters older sisters of brothers. Losses tend to affect the men’s choices. If they do, the
suffered by partners or the parents were sig- oldest brothers of brothers should be more
nificantly more frequent among the divorcees amenable to such an influence than the
(Toman, 1962b). youngest brothers of brothers. Oldest siblings
It has never been the author’s contention are the first to wise up to their parents, their
that parents matter less than siblings, psycho-characters and their relationship to each other.
logically. The parents’ characters and inter- They are the pace-setters, and if conflict
personal proclivities, however, have been prevails among the parents or if the parents
found to be co-determined by their own sibling have suffered losses in their early lives, the
configurations, including losses. The parents oldest siblings tend to get the brunt of it. They
may be in various degrees of harmony with serve as buffers for their younger siblings.
one another by the criteria mentioned. The Twenty oldest and twenty youngest brothers
greater his parent’s harmony, the more likely of brothers only, all of them married, their ages
is it for a given person that he can experienceranging from 23 to 54 years at the time of the
investigation and having 1.8 and 2.0 children
freely and enjoy all contacts with his siblings.
respectively on average were explored for
The greater the conflict that prevails among the
parents and/or the greater the losses they havesibling positions of their wives considering only
age-ranks. Table 1 shows the distribution.
suffered themselves, the greater the probability
that the person in question (and his siblings) Apparently oldest and youngest brothers of
stay affected by that conflict. They have to brothers chose their partners for significantly
keep a watchful eye on their parents rather different aspects. Chi-square tests for first two
than enjoy each other. columns only were significant on the 5 % level.
Oldest brothers of brothers tend to choose
On the basis of their own sibling positions, a
person’s parents may also be in various degreesyoungest sisters, and youngest brothers of
of harmony or conflict with him (her). Failing brothers tend to choose oldest sisters, more
to consider that part or aspect of family con- frequently than chance.
figurations may be partly responsible for the Investigating the ‘wrong’ choices of the
oldest brothers further, i.e. those five cases
occasional relative failures of previous psycho-
where oldest brothers had chosen oldest
logical studies of sibling position to establish
clear trends (e.g. Goodenough & Leahy, 1927; sisters for wives, it was found that those oldest
Guilford & Worcester, 1930; Wile & Jones, brothers’ mothers had been oldest sisters
1937; Sears, 1950; Koch, 1956). themselves in four of those five cases. Doing
the same for the ‘wrong’ choices of the
youngest brothers, the two cases where they
PRESENT STUDY had chosen youngest sisters for wives, it was
The present study concerns males coming found that the mothers of both men had been
from monosexual sibling configurations or, youngest sisters themselves. I n other words, in
more specifically, oldest brothers of brothers six of the seven ‘wrong’ choices of wives by
 Choice of marriage partners 45

Table 1. Distribution of wives of oldest andyoungest brothers of brothers according to

wives’ sibling positions
Wives
A
I 7

Oldest Youngest Middle

HUsbands sisters sisters sisters Singletons
Youngest brothers 9 2 7 2
of brothers
Oldest brothers 5 7 4 4
of brothers

men coming from monosexual sibling con- DISCUSSION

figurations their wives had similar sibling
positions as the men’s mothers. This cor-
responds to only three such coincidences in
thosenine cases where youngest brothers chose
oldest sisters and to another three such co-
incidences in those seven cases where oldest
brothers chose youngest sisters.
Hence it could be argued that the men
coming from monosexual sibling configura-
tions chose a spouse after the image of their
mother when other considerations, uncon-
scious ones, to be sure, were not made or did
not work out. It might also be said that their
mothers prevented those men from choosing
according to other considerations, and that
they seemed to have a greater intluence on
their oldest sons than on their youngest. While
these aspects are being studied with other
samples, the present data are insufficient for
further comment.
It has been argued before (Toman, 1959a, b,
1960b, 1 9 6 2 ~ )that singletons, having no
sibling position of their own, tend to adopt to
some extent the sibling position of their same-
sex parent. In the present sample the two
singletons married by youngest brothers of
brothers (see Table 1) turned out to be the
daughters of one oldest sister and one middle
sister (to be exact, the second oldest of five
siblings and the oldest girl), whereas the four
singletons married by oldest brothers of
brothers were the daughters of three youngest
sisters and one oldest sister. This appears to
confirm the trend of complementarity by
sibling rank among marriage partners.
The study presented is only a small aspect in
a larger project that the author has been
engaged in for many years and that has recently
been sponsored by Deutsche Forschungs-
gemeinschaft. Men, rather than women,
coming from monosexual sibling configurat-
ions werechosen sinceprevious work, also with
friendships formed on college level, seemed
to suggestthat women, being the ones generally
to be chosen rather than those to choose,
tended to reflect the trend for rank-comple-
mentarity less clearly by themselves. A some-
what similar difference between men and
women was observed in the study of ‘happy
marriages ’ and divorces (Toman, 1962b).
Among the divorced partners women had
suffered significantly more losses than men.
Losses, apparently, did not prevent them from
being chosen, but might have, had they been
in men’s positions, i.e. having to do the
choosing.
The author hopes that this study will further
the interest in this field which he has come to
consider a gold mine for probing into the
psychology of life, so to speak, and for re-
search. The predominance of older sisters
among student nurses, of senior siblings
among teaching fellows or, e.g. volunteers for
certain psychological experiments, or a little
fact such as that, in the author’s own course on
‘advanced child psychology’, student enrol-
ment showed a strong predominance of oldest
siblings (significant on the 1 yolevel), are a few
of many incidents where data of family constel-
lations play a traceable part. Perhaps the most
46 WALTER
striking evidence (at that time, summer 1958,
still surprising to the suthor) was found in a
study of women who had chosen to work as
‘mothers’ in children’s villages (a central
European institution gathering children from
broken homes in groups of nine children of
different ages and both sexes and giving them
houses and ‘mothers’). Those women had not
only all suffered losses themselves, but came
from families of a size of nine children, on
average, in which there prevailed a shortage of
men. Females outnumbered males by about
2: 1, the same ratio by which female adults
tended to outnumber male adults in the
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SUMMARY
The choices of wives by oldest and by
youngest brothers of brothers only were
found to be s i w c a n t l y different according to
the wives’ sibling positions. Oldest brothers of
brothers tended to chooseyoungest sisters, and
youngest brothers of brothers oldest sisters,
more often than chance. The sibling positions
of the men’s mothers seemed also to influence
their son’s choices of wives.
pp. 80-95. Ed. M. R. Jones. Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press.
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