This study tests the common assertion that women, especially upper-middle-class housewives, vicariously experience their husbands' success. Findings for 121 mostly upper-middle-class housewives disprove this assertion. Husband's success does positively affect a housewife's self-esteem, but only indirectly, through its effect on perceived marital…

An instrument labeled the Personal Report of Spouse Communication Apprehension was developed and found to have adequate internal consistency, face validity, and predictive validity. Results of its use indicate that spouse communication apprehension is conceptually and factorially distinct from general communication apprehension. (Author)

Tested the hypothesis that practice has a positive effect on several kinds of student learning in a functional marriage course. The major finding in the data was that a workbook type of practice had a significant and important short-term and long-term effect on students' ability to apply abstract ideas. (Author)

Issues related to individual and family life are studied as they vary across stages of the family life cycle. Strong relationships are found between stages in family life cycle and a number of such issues. Further analysis indicates that the major dimensions of the cycle are children and length of marriage. (Author)

Investigates several sets of personality and attitudinal variables to assess their relationship to one clear-cut example of sex-role behavior, namely, labor-force participation on the part of married women, and corrects some methodological limitations of earlier studies. (Author)

Examines determinants of a first marital disruption between 1968 and 1973 for young women who were married at any point during that interval. Whereas economic factors were found to have some importance, other social and demographic factors appeared to have a more significant independent effect on the probability of disruption. (Author)

This review of methodological, theoretical, and topical trends in family studies research covers changes in definitions of family and in marriage, parent-child relationships, and family social ecology. Issues discussed include marital satisfaction, violence, social construction of gender, family-work relationship, parenting roles, socialization,…

Following Lopata's (1966) model of the life cycle of the married woman's role, it was predicted and found that a woman's life stage would be related to her role pressures (work, home, self, and time), conflict, and satisfaction. Age and number of roles were not as strongly related to these variables as was life stage. (Author)

The concept of "family life cycle" has become increasingly prominent in the study of "family development"--the formation, maintenance, change, and dissolution of marriage and family relations. An evaluation of this concept is accomplished by examining the relationships among three possible stratification schemes for studying family development.…

Serveral facets of the homemaker job were analyzed in terms of the dynamic relationship between husband and wife. Husband and wife pairs (N=71) completed a questionnaire which assessed satisfaction with the homemaker job, marital satisfaction, distribution of responsibility for homemaker tasks between husband and wife, and other variables. (Author)

Reveals that families influence marriage timing indirectly, through impact on school as an alternative to marriage. Black girls more often come from families with attributes leading to early marriage, but are only half as likely to form early marriages as White girls from similar educational and family backgrounds. (Author)

Explores trends in marital satisfaction over three generations using a two-dimensional measure. Findings do not indicate linear decline culminating in disenchantment. Youngest generations report high positive interaction and high negative sentiments; middle generations, low levels of both; and older generations, high positive interaction with…

Analyzed seven subsamples of young males, homogeneous with respect to race and age, who were unmarried and in school in 1966. Those in the younger cohorts who had married early had less educational attainment were less likely to be enrolled in school in 1970, and had lower educational aspirations. (Author)

Studied 759 married pairs at different points in their life cycles. When they were compared in terms of such factors as preferred division of labor between spouses, actual family role enactment, marital decision-making, and attitudes about "alternative family forms," similarities across different age groups were far more important than…

Examines the relationship between voluntary childlessness and marital adjustment. Voluntarily childless wives were precision-matched with mothers on education, religion, and participation in the labor force. There was a positive relationship between childlessness and enhanced marital adjustment and satisfaction. The small difference was related to…