Conclusions

     The most commonplace family composition among both severely
love-shy groups was a pair of parents with an intact marriage, and one
or two brothers and no sisters. The research data obtained for this book
clearly suggest that severe love-shyness is strongly associated with the
experience of having grown up in a family without female siblings. "Only
child" status was also found to be associated with severe love-shyness.
However, it was pointed out that "only children" with competent parents
are probably at even less risk of developing severe love-shyness than
children (of competent parents) who do have siblings.
     Finally, severe love-shyness appears to be strongly associated with
growing up in a family which does not afford any adult relatives or kin,
other than parents, upon whom a child can count for emotional support
and help. Simply put, the families of the love-shys were much more
isolated from relatives and kin, than were the families of the non-shy
men. Further, the little kin interaction which the love-shys had expe-
rienced throughout their formative years tended to have been much
"cooler" and less emotionally satisfying than that which had been expe-
rienced by the non-shy men.
     Interactions with siblings and with adult relatives and kinfolk can
do much to absorb a considerable amount of the stress and turbulence
created by emotionally disordered parental behavior. In most cases the
love-shys did not have such benefits available to them. On the other
hand, most of them did grow up in intact homes. The parents of the
love-shys were no more likely than those of the non-shy men to have
ever divorced or separated. However, the emotional quality of the mar-
riages of the love-shys' parents appears in most cases to have been
markedly inferior to that prevalent in the marriages of the non-shys'
parents.


Notes

     1. Almost two-thirds of the non-virginal men in Komarovsky's study had enjoyed
favorable relations with their sisters. This had been true for only two-fifths of the sexually
inexperienced men whom she studied.