Long Married Couples Look Somewhat Alike ?

kaluputti · Dec 15, 2020

ashima10 said: ↑

Its true. Many people tell me me and my husband looks like siblings. I assume its because of looks because
1. he is conventionally good looking
2. we do fight a lot, so dont want to think that we fight like sibling.

Ashima.
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Yes, I also have heard such comments about me and H.one of nature's amazing laws....and yes...we (I) do fightl like siblings but ..he like like the affectionate eldest bro and me as the youngest spoilt brat sis...!

Viswamitra · Dec 15, 2020

Hopikrishnan said: ↑

In old family photos, the children look like one or the other of the couples. And then the children start to look like both of their parents. And then the parents start to look like one another.

<source>
A decades-old question of whether couples in long-term marriage/relationships begin to look alike over time has been answered by researchers.
In 1987, researchers suggested that spouses’ faces were not similar at the outset of marriage but became more similar, with the “degree of convergence positively correlated with couples’ ratings of marriage quality”.
According to the researchers’ hypothesis, couples tend to begin looking alike because they typically “occupy the same environments, engage in the same activities, eat the same food, and mimic each other’s emotional expressions,” all of which can influence facial features.

However in a recent study <source> from Stanford, there was this:
The widely disseminated convergence in physical appearance hypothesis posits that long-term partners’ facial appearance converges with time due to their shared environment, emotional mimicry, and synchronized activities. Although plausible, this hypothesis is incompatible with empirical findings pertaining to a wide range of other traits—such as personality, intelligence, attitudes, values, and well-being—in which partners show initial similarity but do not converge over time. We solve this conundrum by reexamining this hypothesis using the facial images of 517 couples taken at the beginning of their marriages and 20 to 69 years later. Using two independent methods of estimating their facial similarity (human judgment and a facial recognition algorithm), we show that while spouses’ faces tend to be similar at the beginning of marriage, they do not converge over time, bringing facial appearance in line with other personal characteristics.

I had known the 1987 hypothesis, old-wives' tales from before that, and in our own photos, there was indeed a convergence of appearance over the years.

How about you ?
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@Hopikrishnan

A very interesting discussion point. Facial resemblance is a question of judgment to the human eyes and even facial recognition algorithm is subject to the parameters set in the program. But I have heard in real life, many wondering how a husband and wife could look similar to each other after seeing an older couple. I am poor in facial recognition and hence didn't find any couple who look similar to each other so far. Perhaps, it is because my mind is already conditioned to assume no husband and wife could look alike.

However, I have watched the traits changing for the couples over a period of time due to their prolonged companionship. In some situations, the wife behaves more like the husband and in other situations, the husband changes his character more like his wife. There is an interpretation even in Mahabharatha that both Draupathi and Udhistra changed themselves more towards the qualities of each other. Draupadi became extremely righteous unaffected by the evil actions of Gauravas while Udhistra became more vengeful to settle score with the cousins for the humiliation encountered by his wife. A question may come why she didn't emulate the other four husbands or why the other four husbands didn't practice the qualities of Draupadi? One's traits should have considerable influence for someone to emulate those traits.

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Long Married Couples Look Somewhat Alike ?

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