University Students’ Criteria for Choosing a Life Partner: A Case Study on a Hashemite University Student Sample

Abstract

The study aimed to show the attitudes of university students towards the criteria for choosing a life partner by using a sample consisting of (816) male and female students studying at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The study took into account their academic level, academic specialization, place of residence, type of housing for their families, and their family’s monthly income. The study contains (18) items that measure the five criteria for choosing a life partner. Then, the data obtained from the sample underwent two types of statistical operations. The first was used to describe the characteristics of students and their attitudes, which included repetitions, ratios, arithmetic mean, and standard deviations. The second was inferential by using Chebyshev’s Theorem which showed the effects of the characteristics of students on their attitudes. After confirming the validity and reliability of its tool, the study reached the following conclusions. The most important criterion from the viewpoint of Hashemite University students is the psychological criterion with an arithmetic average (3.32), followed by the religious standard (3.27), then the socio-cultural criterion (3.23), and finally the economic standard (3.02). The implications of these results are important for the design of courses on family planning at universities and for the implementation for counseling in family courts.