Sociologists know little about how actors explain their attraction to a partner who grew up in a different
social class or why their accounts are likely. This is problematic as one form of social class heterophily
is relatively common—heterophily by class origin. Drawing upon data from interviews with college-educated
respondents in heterophilous marriages by class origin (n = 60) as well as interviews with
college-educated respondents in homophilous marriages by class origin (n = 20), this article shows that
respondents in heterophilous and homophilous marriages say that they appreciate their spouse for different
reasons. Whereas actors in homophilous relationships by class origin explain their appreciation for
their spouse in terms of cultural similarities, respondents in heterophilous marriages by class origin
explain their appreciation of their spouse in terms of “cultural complements”—the obverse of the dispositions
they dislike in themselves and attribute to their own upbringing. The article theorizes that accounts
of cultural complements are enabled by the social organization of culture by class.