Relates a follow-up study of newlywed couples nine months after marriage to determine the couple's appraisal of the most frequent causes of discord and unhappiness. (MH)

Divorce rates in North America have increased sharply during the last century. Though this fact may best be understood as the result of many factors, one of them is the law. This paper provides a brief history of Canadian divorce laws and their relationship to divorce rates. (Author)

Analyzes data on the marital stability of young parents from the 1972 National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Reports that the birth of the first child strengthens the short-run stability of marriages: disruption rates of 5 to 8 percent were lower than estimated rates had the child not been born. (KH)

Systematic training in interpersonal communication skills was conducted with partners in deteriorated marriages who acknowledged a low level of communication as a major problem. The results indicated that trained couples improved significantly in their interpersonal skills and in their ability to elicit self-exploration from their spouse. The…

Consequences of early marriage are reviewed and stated as three propositions involving social class placement following marriage, divorce rate, and negative affect. Three derived propositions are obtained from these. Theoretical family propositions are related to exchange theory and shown to be special cases of it. Presented at American…

This study discusses how many persons have had multiple marriages and have been divorced; length of time between marriages and the probability of marriage; and divorce, widowhood and remarriage by various social and economic characteristics based on marital history information from the Survey of Economic Opporutnity. (Author/CG)

Findings suggest that unhappy marriage is a disability, analogous to minority race, economic deprivation or physical illness. (Author)

Tested the hypothesis that the inverse relationship between marital happiness and disruption will be strong under conditions of high marital alternatives and weak under conditions of low marital alternatives. Used micro data from a sample of 400 White, urban, American couples. Found no support for the hypothesis. (Author/RC)

Data from seven recent American national surveys found that persons remarried after divorce had rather high levels of reported well-being, but never-remarried women reported lower aggregate marital happiness than never-divorced married women or never-remarried men; the difference was not explained by race, age, or socioeconomic variables.…

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)

Data from a national sample of married adults, interviewed four times between 1980 and 1992, do not support the idea that unhappily married couples use childbearing as a strategy to increase solidarity and reduce marital uncertainty. Instead, results indicate that a solid marriage and compatibility between spouses encourage parenthood and…

Sought to identify similarities and differences of Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), Marital Adjustment Test (MAT), and Revised Marital Adjustment Test (RMAT) with 302 clinical and nonclinical couples. Across both samples, each test was significantly different from other two. Results showed that scores on DAS, MAT, and RMAT were not equivalent.…

Suggests it is couples' communication skills and problem-solving strategies, not their specific problems, that differentiate satisfied and dissatisfied couples. Concludes after a study of couples' arguments that adjusted couples are more likely to use effective complaint sequences, whereas maladjusted couples are more likely to employ ineffective…

Among 4,462 former servicemen surveyed, testosterone levels were positively related to not marrying and marital instability, and negatively related to every aspect of marital quality examined. Findings are analyzed in relation to three sociological theories of marital success based on socioeconomic status (educational attainment, income, and…