Instead, they tend to measure your self-concept through therapy, interviews, and questionnaires that ask subjects to describe both how they would ideally like to be and how they actually are.
I'm not sure how to describe my ideal partner but I'll know when I find her and all my friends, family and close acquaintances have told me what they think of her.
When scientists ask people to describe their ideal partner before going to a speed-dating event or looking at online dating profiles, those traits have almost no bearing on who they eventually end up with.
Suddenly at the end of a sentence that began as an idealized portrait of country life we find ourselves at the beginning of a morality play and of a dissertation on class, labor, and the nature of wealth.