Based on a study of 120 United States households, two methodological issues underlying research concerning family role and authority are examined: incongruency in husband-wife responses and coherence of authority patterns across a range of family decisions and tasks. Question ambiguity is a major source of incongruity in husband-wife response.…

The opinion among Swedes is that there is a higher commitment and a higher responsibility among those having been married for a long time than among those having been married for a short time. These data point toward existence of a renewed or perhaps a new courtship and marriage pattern. (Author)

Marriage is the traditionally approved means of organizing one's sex life. However, many persons maintain an agreeable sex life in other ways. This paper will examine marriage and its contemporary alternatives on the basis of data derived from a youthful, drug-using population. (Author)

The objective of this paper is to investigate the consequences of early, on time, and late marriage in the lives of white women who are members of an historically significant cohort (birthdates 1925-29) in the 1970 National Fertility Study. (Author)

Retrospective accounts of 42 married couples were used to construct a developmental model of courtship. A basic three-stage pattern was found to characterize the majority of relationships from initial acquaintance to marriage: Casual Dating, Serious Dating and Engagement. Changes in the relationships were measured through the use of a standardized…

The proposition that age at first marriage is inversely related to the risk of divorce was examined by means of detailed age-duration-specific divorce rates for California 1969. A strong inverse relationship was found for male ages at marriage 18 through 25 and female ages at marriage 16 through 24. (Author)

The objective of two studies was to devise an assessment procedure for the evaluation of therapy with distressed marriages. An extension of behavior exchange theory was proposed to include phenomenological ratings by the couple of the intent of messages sent and the impact of messages received. Convergent criteria were used to select 14…

It was hypothesized that unhappily married couples would show a deficit in problem solving by indicating significantly more unresolved problems and would indicate less involvement with one another in both elective free-time activities and shared sexuality. All hypotheses were confirmed. (Author)

This paper examines the relationship of some social factors with extramarital sexual permissiveness. Findings indicate that the best variable to explain extramarital sexual permissiveness is premarital sexual permissiveness. (Author)

The impact sex and marital status have upon circumscribing the social relationships of the elderly is explored. Data reveal that the widowed, as a group, are no more isolated from their kin and friends or from associations in religious organizations than married individuals. (Author)

Data on marital careers of 176 lower-class individuals from Trinidad are analyzed in terms of the frequency and sequencing of three types of marital unions--friending, living, and marriage. Sequencing of marital unions shows movement toward more stable relationships within partnerships and throughout the individual's marital career. (Author)

This paper reports the satisfaction between several independent variables and marital satisfaction. Adequacy of role performance of both self and spouse and spouse's conformity to expectations emerged as the strongest predictors of satisfaction derived from playing family roles. (Author)

Data were collected primarily through participant observation, open-ended interviews and discussions with selected informants. A description is given of the village, occupants, and traditional patterns of mate selection and marriage rituals. The second section deals with changing patterns, those of young village women with postsecondary education…

Within regional samples of households, a subsample of couples only ever married to each other (wife aged 18-24) are given particular focus. Measures of gender role norms and fertility control are developed for the household or couple as a unit. A model of fertility control is developed as a continuing process. (Author)

The study focuses on the relationship of life event stress and marital dysfunction. Couples in which one or both partners were receiving marital counseling had experienced a significantly greater amount of life stress events during the previous 12-month period than had couples who were not experiencing marital dysfunction. (Author)