Attitudes toward Love Among Members of a Small Fundamentalist Community in South Africa

Abstract

The Munro-Adams (1978a, 1978b) Love Attitude Scale was administered to 68 randomly chosen unmarried Caucasian members of a fundamentalist religious community in order to examine their attitudes toward love, courtship, and marriage in view of the background of apartheid and the Church's involvement in the changing South African sociopolitical environment. Results indicate that the subjects gave a weaker endorsement of the love attitude items than has been reported previously in other similar cross-cultural research and that there was a differential ranking of three love styles by the male and female community members. The findings are best understood as the outcome of adherence to rigid religious beliefs within an authoritarian milieu.