Cultural groups address the initiation, development, and maintenance of romantic relationships and marriage in diverse ways. Western values, beliefs, and populations have dominated theory and research, which has led to a relatively monocultural science of relationships. This chapter explores the developing literature on East Asian ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to suggest avenues for further investigation of culturally-defined relationships. We first focus on relatively broad social, ideological, and institutional factors that shape the East Asian Confucian cultural model of marriage in comparison to Western models of relationships. Then we review research linking distinctive East Asian ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving to culturally valued practices, attitudes, and behaviors in romantic relationships and marriage.

On a business trip to Manila, one of the authors’ first meetings was to be hosted at a restaurant. Establishing business relationships in the social environment of a restaurant is what one expects in the Philippines: it is a recognised characteristic of doing business in Asia. On another occasion, when the same author went overseas to discuss a possible joint venture, he was also hosted at a restaurant – not in Asia this time, but in New Zealand. So just how Asian is the characteristic of doing business in a social environment?