Discusses Rehearsals for Growth (RfG), a method of using drama in the service of marital and family psychotherapy. It focuses on enhancing and developing skills that promote good relationship functioning and offering techniques for changing the stories that are cocreated about self and relationship. Describes games and exercises that illustrate…

An explanation for wives' shift in preferences about the division of child care labor before and after the birth of their first child is tested (N=69 couples). Evidence is presented that love for their husbands motivates wives to align their preferences with their husbands'. The mediating role of love is explored. (Author/EMK)

Interviews Robert Smith, executive director of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors (IAMFC), a division of the American Counseling Association. He has been involved with the IAMFC from its beginning and is in a position to provide both a historical perspective and a vision of the division's future. (Author/MKA)

The linguistically mixed marriage stands at he crossroads of important factors in the future of French in North American and Catalan in Europe: reversing language shift. While Quebec and Catalonia appear strikingly similar, strong evidence indicates that demographic, linguistic, socioeconomic, and even lifestyle factors may make linguistic exogamy…

This article describes current evolutionary research on adolescent sexual and romantic behavior. It first reviews functional explanations for basic sex differences in behavior. As in other pair-bonding mammals, women seek dominant males, and men seek and guard young, fertile females. Recent work is then described on adolescent competitiveness,…

Marital relationships, like individuals, follow a developmental trajectory over time with ups and downs and gains and losses. We work from a life course perspective and use growth curve analysis to look at trajectories of change in marital quality over time. Although the tendency is for marital quality to decline over time, some groups begin with…

When selecting a marriage education curriculum, educators can turn to programs that have been evaluated for effectiveness; however, few curricula have undergone such study. An alternative approach, consistent with best practices, is to ensure a research base for program content. A translation process model is offered as an initial attempt to…

This study examined the friendship experiences of 52 wives and mothers, with particular attention given to wives' marriage work (discussions about concerns and problems in the marriage) in 10 domains with friends and spouses. A series of within-subjects repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) indicated that in all but two domains, wives…

Structural Equation Modeling techniques were used to clarify the relationship between marital characteristics, marital processes, and the dependent variable--marital satisfaction--in a sample of 201 participants who were in 1st marriages. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; G. B. Spanier, 1976) and the Enriching and Nurturing Relationship Issues,…

A randomized clinical trial compared the effects of traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT) and integrative behavioral couple therapy (IBCT) on 134 seriously and chronically distressed married couples, stratified into moderately and severely distressed groups. Couples in IBCT made steady improvements in satisfaction throughout the course of…

The purpose of this study is to assess differences between husbands and wives (N= 526 couples at the first assessment) on (a) growth curves over the first 4 years of marriage for psychological distress, marriage-specific appraisals, spousal interactions, social support, and marital satisfaction; (b) the strength of intraspouse links and…

In this article, the author uses data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to examine the impact of childhood living arrangements on the characteristics of marriages formed by women between 1970 and 1989.The focus is on sociodemographic characteristics of marriage that may be taken to indicate a heightened risk of marital stress or…

The first formal attempt at revising Bowen theory within the marriage and family therapy literature is represented in the work of Knudson-Martin (1994). Claiming that several of the theory's concepts are defined at odds with female development, Knudson-Martin (1994) reconceptualizes and expands Bowen theory to rectify these perceived shortcomings.…

This study examines women's choice of surname upon marriage, using a nationally representative Norwegian sample (N = 1,276). Regression analyses revealed that age at marriage, own and mother's education, urban residence, importance of paid labor, liberal family values, and egalitarian work-family roles positively influence marital name keeping.…

This study examined the relations among acculturation, domestic violence, and mental health in 62 married refugee women from Somalia. Refugees from Somalia constituted the largest group of refugees entering the United States in 2005, and little is known about the presence of domestic violence in this group. The results showed that women who…