Status Heterogamy: A Marginalized Equalizer in Stratification.

Intermarriage bridges different social groups. It follows that status heterogamy equalizes to certain degree different social statuses, so undermining the hierarchy of social status. Gould argues that inequality functions to reduce conflict among individuals and among groups by establishing order of precedence. Then, in a macrosociological perspective, I would hypothesize that, because people involved in or influenced by status heterogamy tend to avoid the non-institutionalized conflict caused by status heterogamy, society suppresses and marginalizes it. Under the assumption that society's response to status heterogamy has consequences on some behavior and attitudes of the heterogamous couples, statistical findings from GSS data, with certain reservation, support this hypothesis. The findings show that status heterogamy undermines the heterogamous couples' social participation, their trust in other people, their confidence in political and economic institutions, and their satisfaction with friends and with community, but promotes their liberal political attitude. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]