Spouse / House Hunt

I am at that age when a good number of my friends are looking to find their partner, get married (arranged marriage) and almost an equal number of them are looking to buy houses (moving on to the next stage after getting married). I have had hours of conversation with friends from both spectrum regarding the criteria for the perfect spouse/house, the challenges and so on. And I realized how eerily similar both searches are.
In both cases its a big commitment.. You want to make the right choice.. So you come up with these set of criteria which you believe constitute your perfect specimen... You think anything less would not make you happy.. I know here some of you say that spouse is for life and a house not necessarily so... I agree but a house is financially binding and a fairly long term commitment...hence the knot in the stomach feeling before making the decision in both cases can be quite similar...don't you think?
In coming up with the set of criteria in either case sometimes one might get sidetracked from the core of the issue. Some criteria are added on, as a supposed defense against unfavorable characteristics one comes across, in the search. Like you see a house which is 15 years old and is probably not in that great shape and voila a new criteria that the house has to be less than 5 years old is added. Or you meet this guy/ girl who grew up in some other city than you..And you don't connect (like just very different backgrounds)..And suddenly a new criteria of guy/girl being from the same city as you is added. Somewhere along the line the search becomes all about the add ons rather than the important things..I wonder how many of us try to analyze what we really want from a criteria on the list.
So heres a thought...House hunters are recommended to make a list at the beginning of the search dividing their requirements into "Must Haves" and "Nice to Haves". Along the search this helps keep focus on the essentials. Also the process of preparation of the list may cause one to delve deeper into each requirement. I think it will do a world of good to make a similar list for spouse hunt as well. So that criteria about "smart" can go to the "must have" list whereas, "from Top 5 schools" one, can go to "nice to have". Cause somewhere along the line when "smart" morphs into "only from Top 5 schools" the list will help bring you back to the starting point.
At the end of the day finding both "Haves" in one specimen would be perfect..But I think perfect is overrated ;)