Does intellectual compatibility play an important role in having a life partner?

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I think having shared values is important. It will lessen conflict and help hold the couple together.
 
It can.

I myself find people who can carry on a decently intelligent conversation more attractive than those who can’t seem to find any words…

And in this day and age, a spiritually and religiously kindred spirit can be important. So many people, it seems to me, marry people of different faiths - if they have any at all - and they end up regretting it or causing their kids unneeded problems.
 
Yes, both are major factors. I do think spiritual compatibility can work out with more differences than intellectual. For example, a Catholic might find a Protestant willing to attend a Catholic Church. You might have two Catholics and one attends regularly and the other is non-practicing. The non-practicing one may go back to the Church if that is where his/her partner is going.

Intellectual compatibility is more tricky. Two people will generally be more compatible if they are close to the same intellect level. That does not mean that it is impossible for one to have a degree and while the one other doesn’t. However, the one who doesn’t would probably need to be naturally bright for the two people to find common ground and enjoy each others company.
 
For sure. Physical attraction will come and go, as can material wealth, but someone who is compatible intellectually and spiritually is highly likely to remain so throughout life, and so is more worth looking out for.
 
Yes, yes and yes… However a lot depends on the size of the difference. Also most people are smart in some ways while their partner is smart in other ways.

Then again it may all be rather moot…

I have no idea what I just said…🤷

Makes me wonder who is the smart one in my marriage…
 
I find complementary intellects work very well. For example, I tend to think things through logically, whereas my wife tends to think things through emotionally. Since she has what I don’t and vice versa, we end up covering all of the possibilities of a particular scenario.

Spiritual compatibility is very important. In the case of Catholics, both parties should be Catholic. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter in the beginning, but once the kids come along, or one party that wasn’t practicing their faith starts practicing it rigorously, major problems can arise.
 
Compatibility clearly does but this does not necessarily require intellectual equality. In my marriage I have the string of letters after my name: my wife has none. However, she is far more skilled in areas where I’m a complete buffoon.

It’s said opposites attract. Certainly people can complement each other where they have different skills and abilities…
 
Compatibility or non-compatability is neither a guarantee of a successful, long-lasting rekationship. Each is part of a mosaic of what makes relationships work, and both depend on the people involved.

On its basic level, one could argue that people who are compatible in certain areas already have a “baseline” to work with. Opposites have to work harder, but that may make two people more determined to make the relationship work.

Of course, one of the first things to do is to define the terms. Intellectual is often equated with education level, but not always. In my line of work, I am often surrounded by individuals who have multiple degrees but have no common sense, emotional empathy, and out of their specific disciplines quite clueless about life in general. My parents never went beyond high school but valued keeping themselves well-read and well-informed on current events. They could keep up with any conversation with a person with a PhD.

When it comes to spiritual compatibility, some basics like agreement on religious denominations and if faith is important in one’s life are critical. Once agreement is reached on those, all others can be worked out.
 
alitaptap said:
How about spiritual compatibility?
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For Catholics, the best situation is:
  1. She should be Catholic.
  2. You should earn each other’s trust, be friends and have things in common. Even if she has different interests in some things, you should have some interests in common.
  3. You should enjoy each other’s company no matter what you do together.
  4. She should be intelligent. This is not to be confused with having a college education. I know very smart and intelligent women who did not finish high school. Or if they did, it didn’t change things much.
  5. If she does not believe as you do, you need to sit down and understand what your differences are and try to resolve them.
  6. Speak to a priest before you get married.
Peace,
Ed
 
Life partner?

I hope this term is used to mean potential spouse and not what what the term was coined to mean.
 
alitaptap said:
How about spiritual compatibility?
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Your original Thread title suggest Intellectual compatibility as a means of procuring Matrimonial Consent with regards to the laws of the Catholic Church.

One must not parallel human mental cognizance with spiritual understanding.
Mental Incapacity
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Canon 1095 gives three conditions that would make a person unable to contract marriage from mental incapacity.
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Code: 
1095.  They are incapable of contracting marriage: 
(1) who lack the sufficient use of reason; 
(2) who suffer from grave lack of discretion of judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and duties which are to be mutually given and accepted; 
(3) who are not capable of assuming the essential obligations of matrimony due to causes of a psychic nature.
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  1. Regarding the use of reason, the Church is saying that a person must have sufficient development of their faculties of intellect and will to be able to judge and to will a truly human act. This is the most basic level of intellectual maturity, but one not found in small children, or in adults who suffer from conditions which affect their powers of reasoning. It takes a pretty grave permanent or transitory condition, however, such as schizophrenia, or alcoholic stupor, to invalidate marriage for lack of reason.
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  1. Discretion refers to the capacity of intellect and will to specifically evaluate, decide and freely enter marriage. The discretion due any act is proportionate to the seriousness of the act. Marital consent, therefore, requires a proportionally serious maturity of discretion for it to be entered validly. It would be easy, however, to overestimate this, as if perfect discretion is need. The person after puberty is considered capable of marriage unless there is evidence to the contrary (c1096), and then the standard of “grave lack” must be met. As Pope John Paul II made clear in a 1987 address to the Roman Rota (the top marriage court of the Church), only incapacity, not just difficulty, is invalidating. An immature person, for example, may have difficulty but still have the capacity to undertake marriage and assume its essential obligations (a community of life that is exclusive and indissoluble, provides mutual help and support and is ordered to the procreation and education of children). A grossly immature person may indeed be incapable, but that must be proven with respect to marriage at the time of exchanging consent.
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  1. Finally, there can be a defect due to the inability to actually assume the essential obligations of marriage. A person may have sufficient reason, even sufficient discretion, but have a psychic condition that incapacitates them for fulfilling marriage’s essential obligations (the conjugal act, the community of life and love, providing mutual help, and procreating and educating children). As noted by Pope John Paul II regarding the lack of reason, it must be an incapacity not just a difficulty, and it must be present at the time of exchanging consent. Examples of such conditions are psychosexual disorders and personality disorders.
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alitaptap said:
How about spiritual compatibility?
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These values are the first:

The hard core is the respect of the natural moral law of each member of couple and of marriage.

Human nature, male and female, alterity and complementarity and the equal dignity between wife and husband with a specifity in function of each sex (the equity).

The Ends of marriage (from love, by love, of love, for love): the bonding of love, the opening to the life, the holy way for going to the heaven, the fact of avoiding the bad effects of the concupiscence, the will of making one flesh, the fact of not be alone in the life (one man needs one woman and one woman needs one man, the nature);

The same point of view, in the intellectual meaning, about the conjugal sexual life: the degree of the importance of the sexual harmony, the same analyze on the senses of marital act with the corollaries.

The intellectual approach on the job, on money,on the leisures, on the culture, on the vacations and on the holy days, on the role of family, **the role woman (wife and mother), the role of man (husband and father).
**
Each member of couple has to be in capacity to try to understand the other, the differences with the intellect, the reason.

For me Intellectual compatiblity is very important for avoiding in the future, at least, the potential misunderstandings…etc. The prudence is important

The respect of the natural moral law, the hard core of this concept.

Objective and realistic philosophy and natural theology are also the first keys, then the religion and the spirituality.
 
In the marriage, each member of couple chooses: a body and soul with their corollaries, or a soul and a body with their corollaries.

The hierarchy of criterias is often very personal, and is in functions of: age, gender, mentalities, level of education, level of faith, level of practice of faith, external contingencies of human beings.

The fact of answering is not easy. There are full of elements.

For me, the hard core is composed by: the love, the respect of the natural moral law (the same intellectual approach and the same level in the application – doctrines and practices --), and the intellectual compatibility.
 
I think it varies. I have known people who are very much “mismatched” when it comes to intellectual ability, but who seem quite happy all the same. I think for some, having a spouse who is perhaps more literal-minded and perhaps steady when one is very intellectually engaged oneself, perhaps comes as a respite or a relief. I think maybe it was Disraeli who, when someone commented that his wife was not very bright, responded something like “Yes, and thank God for it.”

For others, it would not be so. I, for example, knew practically from childhood that I would have great difficulty being married to someone with whom I could not share complicated intellectual things. When I was dating, I could not help myself being let down (mea culpa) if a girl so much as wrote me a letter containing significant grammatical errors. I just could not stand seeing it.

It would be hard, though, to really put a finger on a comparison of my wife’s intellectual abilities and mine. She can out think me in many ways, but they tend to be “logic problem” kinds of things in life. One of her “hobbies” is, in fact, solution of very difficult
logic problems. She buys those books of them to solve. It would drive me crazy to do that. In some ways, it could be said that she is a “math and science” person.

I, on the other hand, am more a “mosaic” thinker, gathering in diverse information then jumping over interim “linear logic” steps to a “big picture” conclusion or solution. It could be said that I’m a “literature person”. My wife has little interest in some of the things I most like to read or study, though she does understand them if I talk about them.

So, I guess that even in similarity, we are complementary, since, while we can fully understand what the other is talking about, we each bring different things to the mix over time, and have accepted that it’s so.

I rely on her judgment for some things, and she relies on mine for others.
 
In general, the sexed complementarity, the sexual complementarity, the moral complementarity, the spiritual complementarity, the philosophical complementarity, the theological complementarity, the religious complementarity, the psychological complementarity, the mental complementarity, the social complementarity, the intellectual complementarity, the cultural complementarity are important.

The intellectual complementarity with the corollaries ( the philosophical complementarity, the theological complementarity), the moral complementarity, the sexed complementarity, the sexual complementarity are the first in my mind.

In fact, after a lot of analyzes, the complementarity of values is the first for deciding of willing a marriage with a such person. Because marriage is an act of reason coming from the soul (volition, will, agreement, the positive manifestation of human intelligence on the conjugal love): love and reason, passion and reason.
 
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