Extensive interest in the authoritarian personality syndrome was piqued by the experience of World War II Nazi domination, and a proliferation of scientific inquiry ensued thereafter. Following an introduction providing a psychoanalytic perspective, this paper attempts to integrate the findings of original thinkers in this area with relevant…

In the past two decades, several fertility variables have been shown to have an effect on marital stability: presence or absence of children, child spacing, birth timing, and total number of children. This paper studies the effect on marital stability of the planning of fertility. (Author)

Investigated relationship between cohabitation and subsequent marital dissolution among 3,300 adults in United States. Consistent with results for Sweden, found that cohabitation in United States was associated with greater hazard of dissolution even after counting time spent in unmarried cohabitation as part of marital duration. (Author/NB)

Discusses outcome and process research on couple therapy and integrates articles in journal's special section on couples and couples therapy into the discussion. Discussion of strengths and weaknesses of various designs concludes that within-model comparisons have been more productive in producing knowledge than between-model comparisons. Includes…

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…

Study of 50 marriage counseling cases of 1970-71 where both partners were under 20 years of age concludes that the vulnerability of early marriages is greatly increased by the failure of communities to provide the basic economic and human supports formerly offered by family networks. (Author)

Used data from probability sample of 10,472 ever-married Canadians to examine effects of premarital cohabitation on later marital stability. Results suggest that premarital cohabitation has a positive effect on staying married. Positive effect remained when length of marriage and age at marriage were controlled. (Author/NB)

Examines the age-at-marriage/marital instability relationship in a national sample (N=1,715). Results suggested that the relationship could be largely explained by inadequate role performance, though the specific inadequacies in performance differed somewhat for the early and later marrieds. (NRB)

Author presented the case against the institution of a no-fault divorce law. (RK)

John L. Schimel, M.D. moderates a discussion by three young married couples concerning areas of possible sexual conflict. (CG)

In an interview, a marriage counselor answers questions concerning sex in marriage. He concludes that sex alone is too narrow a base for a marriage to rest upon and for a successful marriage, there is a need for a deeper basis of companionship. (Author/CG)

The "nonzero sum" noncooperative Prisoner's Dilemma game was used to study marital conflict. Among the results were that: (1) personality characteristics were more predictive of conflict behavior for wives while person perception characteristics were more predictive for husbands; and (2) both sexes tended to exhibit conflict behavior. (Author)

Examined simultaneous effects of multiple indicators of wife's employment on marital disruption for women (N=1,798) who first married between 1968 and 1982. Results indicated the rate and timing of marital disruption was negatively related to wife's income and positively related to number of hours worked per week and amount of premarital work…

Reviews research on premarital factors associated with later marital quality and stability in first marriages. Three major categories of factors are described, including background and context, individual traits and behaviors, and couple interactional processes. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal research are summarized. Recommendations for…

Used data from National Longitudinal Surveys to investigate patterns and determinants of marital dissolution for first marriages. Found that risk of marital instability was highest among couples with heterogamous education and nontraditional employment patterns. Couples who equalized their original education and conventionalized employment status…