In an online survey (February 2015, 170 respondents), participants sent a fairly clear message: a successful marriage is built primarily from within—through trust, communication, and everyday functioning—far more than through “paper” similarities such as political orientation, social background, or sharing the same religion.
The most convincing result is that respondents see the willingness to talk about problems that arise between husband and wife as the key pillar of a stable marriage: 78.6% say this is “completely important,” and an additional 17.9% say it is “mostly important.” In other words, almost all participants believe marriages break down not because partners lack identical biographies, but because they lack a mechanism for resolving conflict.
A similar consensus exists around fidelity: 65.9% rate it as completely important, and 29.5% as mostly important. The intimate dimension is also ranked highly—good sexual relations are “completely important” for 56.7%, while an additional 37% consider them mostly important. In addition, respondents defend personal space: 45.7% say it is completely important to have time for friends, hobbies, and personal activities, and 37% say it is mostly important.
By contrast, “identity filters” score the lowest. Agreement in politics is completely unimportant for 46.8% of respondents, and only 2.9% claim it is completely important. The criteria “being of the same social background” and “sharing the same religious belief” show a similar pattern—both are dominated by answers that they are unimportant or not decisive.
Economic factors and living conditions do matter, but not as a final verdict. Income is seen as completely important by 17.9% and mostly important by 43.9%, while a third remain at “neither important nor unimportant.” Good housing conditions follow a similar pattern: most consider them important, but without absolutising them.
The sample structure shows there were more women (61.9%) than men (38.1%), and the population in the mid-thirties dominates: the median age is 35. The largest share of respondents are married with children (43.9%), while 22.5% are unmarried. This suggests that many answers come from people with concrete experience of the “everyday reality of marriage,” not only idealised views.
Methodological note: the results were obtained via an online survey on a sample of 170 respondents, without a guarantee of representativeness for Serbia’s overall population; the findings should be interpreted as indicative attitudes of the internet population that participated in the study.