Why do the elders choose your spouse in The Giver?

The Elders choose a spouse for you in order to ensure perfect family units.

In Jonas’s community, people do not create their own families.  A family unit in Jonas’s community is not the same as a family as we know it.  This is because the community wants to create what they call Sameness, which means that everyone in the community is as similar as possible.  There are many rules and regulations that have been established to make this happen.

Family units consist of a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl.  The family unit is created for the purpose of raising children, and dissolves as soon as the youngest child grows up.  Family units reinforce community values and rules. They are child-rearing and socialization units.

An adult applies for a spouse when he or she feels ready to create a family unit.  Spouses are matched based on compatibility, meaning that they will work together or fit together well.  This might be based on temperament, intelligence, and interest.  We learn that not everyone is given a spouse.

Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow, the essential capacity to connect to others, which was required for the creation of a family unit. (Ch. 1) 

The Matching of Spouses is given “weighty consideration” to ensure that the family unit will function well.  The spouses act as parents, and the main focus is on the children.  They are not in love or married like spouses are in our understanding.  Matches are monitored for three years.  Then the couple can apply for a child.  When the children grow up, the parents go to live with the Childless Adults. 

Jonas discusses the spouse situation with The Giver later, as part of his training.  The Giver tells him it is harder for the Receiver of Memory to have a spouse, because he will have to keep things from her.  Jonas realizes that he will not live with his parents forever. 

"As long as they're still working and contributing to the community, they'll go and live with the other Childless Adults. And they won't be part of my life anymore. (Ch. 16) 

Jonas realizes that he won’t even know when his parents are released, because he will have moved on with his life by then.  His parents won’t be together either.  Jonas comments that it “seems to work pretty well that way,” but he also liked the memory of a real family he saw. 

By having family units, the community keeps things stable.  There are no divorces.  There are no broken homes.  As long as the children are children, they will always have parents.  However, there is no emotional connection to their parents, and their parents have no connection with each other.  As soon as the children grow, everyone just goes on.