This article focuses on parents' construction of and emotions in their everyday lives. The study brings into focus the meanings in the foreground of everyday life, while also revealing new insights into cultural beliefs and prejudices. Interviews were conducted with five nuclear and four divorced families, and each participant (N = 18) was…

Junior enlisted Marines are getting married at a faster rate than their civilian counterparts and nearly twice that of senior personnel (Gomulka, 2010; Cohen, Passel, Wang, & Livingston, 2011). With the high rate of marriage, these same junior Marines have a disproportionately high divorce rate. While the high rate of divorce is a significant…

Background: Social workers play a central role in service delivery for parents with intellectual disability (ID). Within Israeli Muslim society, men with ID are likely to marry non-disabled women and create families. This study adds to scarce research on how social workers view these families, and how they might better serve their needs. Method: A…

The aim of this study was to examine the predictive role of values and perceived social support variables in marital adjustment level among married individuals. A total of 422 (211 pairs) married individuals who agreed to participate voluntarily were included. The study was conducted in accordance with the relational screening model. "Dyadic…

This article introduces marriage and family therapists (MFT) to some of the common issues faced by families that have a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). First, autism is defined and common myths surrounding it are discussed. Next, relational challenges are presented that families report experiencing during early childhood through the…

Since the 1960s, the United States has witnessed a dramatic retreat from marriage, marked by divorce, cohabitation, single parenthood, and lower overall marriage rates. Marriage is now less likely to anchor adults' lives or provide a stable framework for childrearing, especially among poor and working-class Americans. Much research on the retreat…

Following the pastoral moto proprio "Sacrum Diaconatus Ordinem," June 18, 1967, Pope Paul VI implemented paragraph twenty-nine of the "Constitution on the Church" ("Lumen Gentium") to restore the permanent diaconate and to allow married men over the age of thirty-five to become permanent deacons for service to the…

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital…

The rise of blended families is becoming a prevalent dynamic in our society. According to the United States Census Bureau: American Community Survey, 2009 report, the U.S. is approaching a fifty percent divorce rate. Fifty percent will remarry within three and half years of their divorce. Of these, sixty-five percent will have children from their…

In modern society, men and women want to have a successful marriage and a career. However, people are faced with new demands at work and home, and therefore, finding a balance between work and family life is a real challenge. In this article, the data consist of stories written by Finns who have been married for more than 10 years (N = 342 married…

Theoretical models of family formation have assumed sexual coupling as the foundation of family life. This article proposes instead a model of family formation predicated on the processes of taking care of one another, eating together, and sharing life together. The interpersonal dynamics that distinguish a family from other close relationships…

The relative numbers of women and men are changing dramatically in China, but the consequences of these imbalanced sex ratios have received little empirical attention. We merge data from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey with community-level data from Chinese censuses to examine the relationship between cohort- and community-specific sex…

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and provide insight into meanings and factors that contribute to healthy committed marriages among African American heterosexual married couples. This study explored the experiences of couples who had been married for 25 years and longer. This qualitative study was conducted using a…

Mexican women's working and romantic lives were frequent subject matter in early-twentieth-century Mexican American music. Surprisingly, this trend is rendered nearly invisible by the corpus of scholarly work that focuses on the male-centered "heroic corrido," particularly the class and race conflicts represented in that "masculine" genre. This…

Using data from the 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey, we examined birth control use between marriage and first pregnancy. We focused on the post-1990 increase in birth control use and develop two explanations. The first posits that birth control use reflects a new marriage form, the conjugal marriage, which places a heightened value on the…