Marital Sentiment Override: Does It Influence Couples' Perceptions?

This study investigated the effects of spouses' global sentiments (i.e., their marital bonds) on spouses' perceptions of their partners' specific affects. Ninety‐six newlywed couples participated in the study. Positive or negative sentiment override was indicated when spouse ratings of specific affects differed from the coding of objective coders. For both positive affect and low‐intensity negative affect, wives' marital bond predicted their ratings of their husbands' affect. In addition, there was evidence for positive sentiment override when wives rated husbands' low‐intensity negative affect. As predicted, neither husbands nor wives were influenced by sentiment override when rating their spouses' high‐intensity negative affects. These results suggest that marital bond serves as a perceptual filter through which wives evaluate their husbands' behavior.     

Marital Quality and Spouses' Marriage Work With Close Friends and Each Other

Through in‐home interviews with 142 married couples, we explored how husbands' and wives' marriage work with close friends and one another was linked to their perceptions of marital quality. Results showed that husbands engaged in more marriage work with their wives than with close friends, whereas wives engaged in similar levels of marriage work with their close friends and husbands. For wives, marriage work with their spouses was found to moderate the relationship between marital quality and marriage work with friends. At low levels of marriage work with their spouses, wives' marriage work with friends was negatively related to their reports of marital love and positively related to reports of ineffective arguing. In contrast, at high levels of marriage work with their husbands, no significant relationship was found between wives' marriage work with friends and marital quality for wives. Findings underscore the role of spouses' friendships and suggest that the strength of spouses' ties to one another is linked to the social context they and their close friends create.     

Marital Discord and Subsequent Dissolution: Perceptions of Nepalese Wives and Husbands

The author examined the influence of marital discord on separation and divorce in a rural South Asian setting. Little is known about how marital discord influences marital outcomes in settings with low personal freedom and limited access to independence. Using a sample of 674 couples from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, the author investigated the impact of marital discord on the rate of marital dissolution and the extent to which wives' and husbands' perceptions of discord influence dissolution. The results revealed that (a) spouses' perceptions of marital discord increase the rate of marital dissolution, (b) both husbands' and wives' perceptions of discord have an important influence, and (c) the influence of wives' perceptions of discord is independent of their husbands' perceptions. Overall, these findings suggest that both spouses' perceptions of discord are important for marital outcomes, even in settings where the costs of marital dissolution are relatively high.     

Intergenerational Support and Marital Satisfaction: Implications of Beliefs About Helping Aging Parents

Everyday support given to aging parents is a salient aspect of married life that may have implications for marital quality. Among 132 middle‐aged couples drawn from Wave 1 of the Family Exchanges Study, the authors examined the moderating effects of each spouse's normative and motivational beliefs about helping parents on associations between the frequency of everyday support that wives and husbands gave to their own parents and marital satisfaction. Husbands' more frequent provision of support was linked to wives' greater marital satisfaction when reports of personal rewards linked to helping parents were high for wives or low for husbands. Conversely, wives' more frequent provision of support was linked to husbands' lower marital satisfaction when reports of filial obligation were low for husbands or high for wives. Findings highlight the interdependence within couples and indicate that both spouses' perceptions are important in understanding linkages between intergenerational support and marital satisfaction.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective

The question of how educational assortative mating may transform couples' lives and within‐family gender inequality has gained increasing attention. Using 25 waves (1979–2012) of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shapes income dynamics in couples during the marital life course. Couples were grouped into three categories—educational hypergamy (wives less educated than their husbands), homogamy, and hypogamy (wives more educated than their husbands). Results show that change in husbands' income with marital duration is similar across couples, whereas change in wives' income varies by educational assortative mating, with wives in educational hypogamy exhibiting more positive change in income during the marital life course. The finding that husbands' long‐term economic advancement is less affected than that of wives by educational assortative mating underscores the gender‐asymmetric nature of spousal influence in heterosexual marriages.     

AUTONOMY AND RELATEDNESS IN MARITAL FUNCTIONING

The current investigation expands the focus of cognitive behavioral formulations of marriage by exploring the constructs of autonomy and relatendness in marriage. One hundred forty-one married couples matched to the 1990 U.S. census data on age, race, and income completed a number of self-report marital inventories including the Autonomy and Relatendness Inventory (Schaefer, Edgerton, & Burnett, 1991). Autonomy was measured by evaluating spouses' perceptions of the extent to which partners encouraged a sense of independence and individuality for the spouses. Relatedness was measured by evaluating spouses' perceptions of the amount of closeness that partners provided. It was found that autonomy and relatedness were significantly positively correlated with each other, as well as with marital adjustment for both males and females. It was found that for females, the provision of relatedness (as reported by their husbands) was significantly related to the standards that they held for the relationship. In addition, it was found that for females, the provision of relatedness (as reported by their husbands) was significantly related to the standards that husbands held for the relationship. However, no significant relationships were found between husbands' standards and relatedness (either as reported by wives or husbands). It was concluded that it is appropriate to help couples think of autonomy and relatedness as being tow important aspects of marriage that can exist together and are related to a satisfying marriage. Implications of the findings suggest that marital therapists could expand the conceptualization of marital therapy beyond being primarily relationship focused to include attention to individual needs of the spouses. Relatedness was measured by evaluating spouses' perception of the amount of closeness that partners privided. It was found that autonomy and relatedness were significantly positively correlated with each other as well as with marital adjustment for both males and females. It was found that for females, the prpvision of relatedness(as reported by their husbands) was significantly related to the srandards that they held for the relationship. In addition, it was found that for females, the provision of relatedness(as reported by their husbands)was significantly related to the standards that husbands held for the relatinship. How-ever, no significant relationships were found between husbands' standards and     

Testosterone,marital quality,and role overload

In a sample of established working‐ and middle‐class families with school‐aged children (N= 307 wives and 307 husbands), neither husbands’ nor wives’ testosterone showed a direct connection with marital quality. In contrast, the association between husbands’ testosterone and positive and negative marital quality (as evaluated by both spouses) was conditional on husbands’ role overload. When perceptions of role overload were elevated, higher testosterone levels were associated with lower levels of marital quality. When perceptions of role overload were low, higher testosterone was linked to greater marital quality. The study supports the biosocial model such that, depending on perceptions of the social context, testosterone enables positive behavior in some instances and negative behavior in others.     

Implications of Overwork and Overload for the Quality of Men's Family Relationships

This study examined the implications of men's long work hours and role overload for the quality of their relationships with their wives and their firstborn (M= 15 years) and secondborn adolescent offspring (M= 12.5 years) in a sample of 190 dual‐earner families. Holding constant men's occupational self‐direction and level of education, long hours were related to less time spent with the wife but were unrelated to spouses' love, perspective‐taking, or conflict; high levels of role overload consistently predicted less positive marital relationships. In contrast, the combination of long hours and high overload was consistently associated with less positive father‐adolescent relationships, a pattern that was similar for older and younger adolescents and for sons and daughters.     

A Review of: “Sex and Ethics: Essays on Sexuality,Virtue, and the Good Life. Edited by Raja Halwani.”

Early family backgrounds of gay fathers compared to a matched sample of gay nonfathers were investigated, with particular emphasis on parent‐son relationships. It was hypothesized that, contrary to predictions based on Freudian theory, there would be no difference in homosexual fathers' and nonfathers' perceptions of their early family life and relationships with their mothers and fathers. Questionnaires from 30 gay fathers and 30 gay nonfathers derived from a larger nationwide study of 285 homosexual men from Dignity chapters in the Northeastern, Midwestern, Southern, Southwestern, and Western United States were analyzed using analysis of variance. No difference was found between the gay fathers' and gay nonfathers' perceptions of their parents' acceptance of them. Both groups perceived their mothers to be significantly more accepting than .their fathers. Both groups also reported growing up in intact homes where heterosexual relationships were modeled for them, pleasant memories existed, and marital discord was not commonplace. These results support the growing body of research which questions the Freudian‐based concept of a causal relationship between early familial relationship patterns and sexual orientation.     

Changing Partners: Toward a Macrostructural‐Opportunity Theory of Marital Dissolution

We merge marital history data for respondents in the National Survey of Families and Households with census data describing the sex composition of their local marriage markets and occupations to examine the impact of the availability of spousal alternatives on marital dissolution. Proportional hazards regression models that adjust for left truncation reveal that the risk of divorce is highest in geographically defined marriage markets where either husbands or wives encounter numerous alternatives to their current partner. Couples are also more likely to divorce when the wife works in an occupation having relatively many men and few women, but husbands' occupational sex ratio has no effect on the risk of marital dissolution. The destabilizing effects of the availability of spousal alternatives in the local marriage market and in wives' occupations are equally strong among couples with many and few other risk factors for divorce. Our findings suggest that spouses' structural opportunities to form alternative opposite‐sex relationships are an important factor in explaining why some couples divorce.     

From Bad to Worse? Pornography Consumption,Spousal Religiosity,Gender, and Marital Quality

Pornography consumption is consistently associated with lower marital quality. Scholars have theorized that embeddedness within a religious community may exacerbate the negative association between pornography use and marital quality because of greater social or psychic costs to porn viewing. As a test and extension of this theory, I examine how being married to a religiously devout spouse potentially moderates the link between respondents' reported pornography consumption and their marital satisfaction. Data are taken from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study. In the main effects, porn consumption is negatively related to marital satisfaction, while spousal religiosity is positively related to marital satisfaction. Interaction effects reveal, however, that spousal religiosity intensifies the negative effect of porn viewing on marital satisfaction. These effects are robust whether marital satisfaction is operationalized as a scale or with individual measures and whether spousal religiosity is measured with respondents' evaluations their spouses' religiosity or spouses' self‐reported religiosity measures. The effects are also similar for both husbands and wives. I argue that for married Americans, having a religiously committed spouse increases the social and psychic costs of porn consumption such that marital satisfaction decreases more drastically as a result.     

The Division of Household Labor: Longitudinal Changes and Within‐Couple Variation

This study examined how the division of household labor changed as a function of marital duration and whether within‐couple variation in spouses' relative power and availability were linked to within‐couple variation in the division of labor. On 4 occasions over 7 years, 188 stably married couples reported on their housework activities using daily diaries. Multilevel models revealed that wives' portions of household responsibilities declined over time and that changes in spouses' relative income and work hours were linked to changes in housework allocation. Wives with husbands who perceived greater marital control, on average, did proportionally more housework, and for couples with husbands who had highly autonomous jobs, changes in spouses' relative psychological job involvement were linked to changes in housework allocation. The findings highlight the importance of understanding household division of labor as a life span phenomenon, the distinction between within‐ versus between‐couple associations, and the multidimensional nature of power and availability.     

Strengths of Remarried Families

This paper focuses on remarried families' perceptions of their family strengths, marital satisfaction and their adjustment to the remarried situation. The sample was composed of both husbands and wives in 80 remarried families where at least one of the marital partners had been previously married. In all cases children were living in the home. Results of the study indicated that although the step-families did not deny they had difficulties and most would like to make some changes in their relationships, their scores on the measurements used in the study were high. Findings are suggestive of the dysfunctionality of continuing to define the remarried family as less desirable than those families who are once-married, for a supportive environment was revealed to be the most important predictor of perceptions of family strength and success among this sample of remarried families.     

Strengths of Remarried Families

This paper focuses on remarried families' perceptions of their family strengths, marital satisfaction and their adjustment to the remarried situation. The sample was composed of both husbands and wives in 80 remarried families where at least one of the marital partners had been previously married. In all cases children were living in the home. Results of the study indicated that although the step-families did not deny they had difficulties and most would like to make some changes in their relationships, their scores on the measurements used in the study were high. Findings are suggestive of the dysfunctionality of continuing to define the remarried family as less desirable than those families who are once-married, for a supportive environment was revealed to be the most important predictor of perceptions of family strength and success among this sample of remarried families.     

Longitudinal Changes in Marital Relationships: The Role of Offspring’s Pubertal Development

This study charted the longitudinal trajectories of wives’ and husbands’ reports of marital love, satisfaction, and conflict and explored whether and how first‐ and second‐born offspring’s pubertal development was related to marital changes. Data were drawn from the first 7 years of a longitudinal study of family relationships. Participants included wives, husbands, and first‐ and second‐born children from 188 White, working‐ and middle‐class families. Multilevel models revealed declines over time in wives’ and husbands’ reports of marital love and satisfaction but only small changes in conflict. Offspring’s pubertal development was related to changes in marital qualities; declines in positivity and increases in negativity were most consistently linked to firstborns’ puberty. Overall, the results highlight the interrelatedness of family subsystems.     

The Division of Labor Across the Transition to Parenthood: A Justice Perspective

In a three‐wave longitudinal survey among 293 couples, we studied the determinants of husbands' and wives' fairness judgments regarding the division of labor across the transition to parenthood. We tested predictions derived from the distributive justice framework that perceptions of fairness regarding the division of labor are affected by (a) wants and values, (b) social comparisons, and (c) procedural justice. The model was supported for wives at all waves. For husbands, wants and values and social comparisons were the main predictors of fairness perceptions. In general, the model was consistently supported across the transition to parenthood. Support was also found for the long‐term influence of the variables in the model on husbands' and wives' perceptions of fairness across the transition to parenthood.     

Religious Influences on the Risk of Marital Dissolution

This study examined multiple dimensions of religious involvement and the risk of divorce among a nationwide sample of 2,979 first‐time married couples. Multivariate proportional hazards modeling was used to analyze two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Results indicated that although each partner's religious attendance bore a modest relationship to marital dissolution, the risk of divorce was lower if husbands had conservative theological beliefs and when both partners belonged to mainline Protestant denominations. Conversely, the risk of divorce was elevated if husbands attended services more frequently than their wives and if wives were more theologically conservative than their husbands. These patterns withstood controls for sociodemographic covariates, marital duration, and marital quality. Directions for future research are discussed.     

WAITING LIST CONTROLLED TRIAL OF COGNITIVE MARITAL THERAPY IN SEVERE MARITAL DISCORD

Forty-one couples with severe marital discord participated in a controlled trial conducted to evaluate whether a form of marital therapy that is designed to enhance marital intimacy through facilitating self-disclosure of personal constructs was effective. The study found that there was no spontaneous remission in marital discord in couples on a 10-week waiting list. Couples subjectively reported improvement as a consequence of participating in marital therapy, and couples in therapy and on the waiting list showed a significant reduction in symptoms of nonpsychotic emotional illness. There was a significant pattern of improvement for wives in the therapy group compared to the waiting list group, but no such effect for the husbands.     

Marital Conflict in Older Couples: Positivity,Personality, and Health

The authors examine the implications of health and personality characteristics for late‐life marital conflict using data from the 2010–2011 wave of the National Social Life Health and Aging Project, a nationally representative study with data on both partners in 955 marital and cohabitational dyads. Using these data, they relate characteristics of husbands to characteristics of their wives and vice versa. Wives with husbands in fair or poor physical health were more likely to report high levels of marital conflict, but the reverse was not true. Similarly, wives reported more conflict when their husbands were high on Neuroticism, high on Extraversion, and low on a new measure the authors call Positivity. The findings suggest noteworthy gender differences between men and women in the associations between individual characteristics and levels of marital conflict. The authors point to differences between husbands' and wives' marital roles as a contributor to these differences.     

The Persistence of Wives’ Income Advantage

Recent reports using cross‐sectional data indicate an increase in the percentage of wives who outearn their husbands, yet we know little about the persistence of wives’ income advantage. The present analyses utilize the 1990 – 1994 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N= 3,481) to examine wives’ long‐term earnings advantage. Although a significant minority of women outearn their husbands in 1 year, considerably fewer do so for 5 consecutive years. The presence and persistence of wives’ income advantage vary by demographic characteristics, economic and human capital measures, and over the individual and marital life course. The findings suggest caution in interpreting women’s relative economic gains as signaling absolute progress toward eliminating gender inequality within marriages.