In Lois Lowry's novel, "The Giver," far more than spouses are planned. Everybody is conditioned to look and act alike, with the exception of coats that denote their ages (Sevens, Nines, Twelves, etc.). The people must speak in precise, dull, inoffensive and at all times curiosity-thwarting terms. A Committee of Elders matches couple based on compatibility in terms of similar and complementary personality traits that will allow them to work together, and every couple is assigned two "pre-grown" children to raise -- one girl and one boy.
Every child at age 12 is given his or her first major assignment. Jonas, who unlike most of the people who have dark eyes, has pale ones that set him aside as special, and that is one of the reasons he is given the greatest honor as far as assignments go when he becomes a Twelve: he is chosen to be the next Giver, the keeper of the secret history of this community that only each successive Giver is allowed to possess. The process of learning from the previous Giver is long and both joyous and painful (new emotions for someone brainwashed all his life into social and emotional numbness).
To sum up without giving away the end of the story, Jonas and his mentor Giver decide to leave the community to find a place of which the old man has only heard stories. Risking their lives, they take a newborn baby who is to be cast out as unviable and flee, hoping news of their escape and the truth of the community's history will be found out by the others in order to free everyone from the unfair societal darkness.