Introduction
One of the most prominent themes of the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” is marriage. Many different relationships were portrayed in the show, as well as the main character’s attempts at finding the love of his life. The show provides a comedic outlook on relationship dynamics, assortative mating, homogamy, and romantic marriage.
Main body
The series revolves around a group of friends in the mid-2000s to mid-2010s, New York. The inciting incident is a long-term couple, Marshall and Lily, getting engaged, which motivates their best friend and flatmate Ted to go on a quest to find his future wife. The group also includes Barney, a womanizer and a liar with father issues, and Robin, a tomboyish Canadian news reporter, traumatized but toughened by her father’s attempts at rearing her as a man. The story spans nine years, in which they struggle with their careers, emotional issues, relationship difficulties, and aging.
The central relationship throughout the series is Marshall and Lily’s marriage, with its ups and downs, individual quirks, and their influence on each other. The relationship is mainly homogamous, as they both have secondary education, similar interests, and the same social circle. Researchers note that such homogenous couples are more likely to go from cohabitation to marriage (Zang & Zhao, 2017), which is precisely what happened in this case. Moreover, their long-term romantic involvement grew out of propinquity, as they lived in the same dormitory. They spent most of their time together, drinking, watching movies, and smoking marijuana. Their interaction is that of mutual care, intimate understanding of each other, and honest communication, which at times is played for laughs, but mostly serves as the show’s moral lesson.
The importance of homogamy is further reinforced by Barney and Robin’s relationship that grows by the end of the series. They are both independent, thrill-seeking, and damaged by their childhood. Luo (2017) notes that mental well-being, psychopathology, and substance abuse are conducive to a successful long-term relationship. While Lily and Marshall’s marriage is that of mutual care and communication, Barney and Robin enjoy alcohol, travel, and promiscuity. Their relationship was portrayed as ultimately unsuccessful both times they attempted it because they were a bad influence on each other and reinforced each other’s vices.
Ted prioritizes assortative mating throughout the series, as his standards for a partner are high, and he wants his future wife to be similar to him in order to facilitate a harmonious household. That is not to say he did not want romantic feelings and passion, but he tried to introduce judgment in his partner selection as well. He courted many women during the series, and many of them he discarded due to insufficient similarity or insufficient romance. In the end, the woman Ted married shared remarkable similarities with him. They were also passionately in love, and the relationship they ended up having was portrayed as very successful.
The image of a good marriage that the series creates is that of strong romantic feelings and considerable homogeneity in character traits, education, and interests, which tends to correlate with scientific evidence (Luo, 2017). An outsider of the American culture may assume that Americans predominately marry for love, value child-rearing, live apart from their extended families and enjoy weddings.
Conclusion
Overall, the series creates a somewhat traditional image of marriage and projects such values as love, common ground, and communication as the cornerstones of a good relationship. The successful couples the show focuses on follow that pattern, while the more tragic stories deviate from it in meaningful ways. It is by no means an exhaustive account of American marital culture, but some lessons may be derived from it and even matched with academic evidence.
References
Luo, S. (2017). Assortative mating and couple similarity: Patterns, mechanisms, and consequences. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(8), e12337.
Zang, X., & Zhao, L. X. (2017). Handbook on the family and marriage in China. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.