Young People Attitude to Marriage: Cross-Cultural Aspect

The paper studies the young people of different ethnocultural groups (Russian and European) attitude to marriage and family by describing three main aspects: cognitive, motivational and emotional, intentional. The article shows that the content validity of such notions as “marriage” and “family” is of high value for the representatives of both ethnocultural groups, but Russian young people’s attitude is based on emotional aspect (love, trust), while young Europeans are much more rational (responsibility and obligations are more valuable for them). If speaking about the value of marriage and family for young Europeans, it is characterized by the so called “conservative” attitude, i.e., first of all, they feel concern about family and national traditions and about having relatives who will support them in future, while loving and having near and dear ones are the most valuable motives to marry for Russians. Young people of both ethnocultural groups have positive emotional attitude to marriage and intentions to marry, but, at the same time, the representatives of the European ethnocultural group have an ambivalent attitude to marriage caused by pragmatic motives. The paper proves that the representatives of both groups have potential intentions to marry and found families, but young Russians’ intentions are much stronger than young Europeans’ ones.