Medical student marriages were examined in order to identify areas of stress, evaluate the congruence between expectations and actualities in the marital partner's role performance as perceived by the spouse, investigate the spouse's attitudes toward marital counseling, and determine whether a marital counseling service should be made available.…

The authors of Open Marriage reiterate the meaning and possibilities of the open marriage concept and advance suggestions for change in the areas of residence, work, child care, and educational patterns. Human service systems must search out the universal values to be maintained in all human relationships. (Editor)

This article delineates predivorce counseling, divorce counseling, and post-divorce counseling. The author suggests that the term Marriage counselor'' is too restricted and advances the term marriage and divorce counselor'' as a replacement. (Editor)

The label "underclass" obscures structural economic change and distorts the realities of poverty. It pays insufficient attention to factors for understanding marginal people--labor market shifts, the poor's lack of safety nets, and interactions between these factors and social problems. Specific policies must confront the divergent…

Divorce and remarriage are beginning to develop identifiable patterns of regularity, i.e., a first step toward institutionalization. Intense and dramatic social and cultural change contributes to divorce. Remarriage will become institutionalized only when more clearly defined patterns of stepparenting, financial obligations, and status recognition…

Proposes that community involvement has a curvilinear influence on marital quality, with quality being the highest at an intermediate level of involvement, and the lowest at the extremes of low and high involvement. Empirical data on specific indicators of community involvement primarily support the curvilinear relationship. (Author)

Married persons select leisure activities that are compatible with the kind of interaction they prefer in their marriages, and these activities tend to reinforce the marital patterns. (MB)

This paper proposes that a National Center for the Study of Divorce be established and presents a possible organizational structure for such a body. (Author)

Assessed marital conflict and endocrine function in 90 newlywed couples. Blood samples were examined to provide composite and daytime values for three stress hormones and three related hormones. Data provided a window on endocrine function in couples for whom the day included conflicts. Discusses findings in the context of gender models of marital…

Compared problem-solving behaviors of four samples of couples, sorted by marital happiness/distress and culture (German and Australian). Results showed cultural differences in frequency and functional significance of negative verbal communication, along with cross-culturally consistent marital behaviors associated with marital distress. (Author/TE)

Assessed the prevalence and frequency of marital violence for 88 male alcoholics and their wives at entry to and 1 year after completing a behavioral marital therapy (BMT) program. Although violence and prevalence decreased significantly after treatment, the alcoholics' drinking outcome status was associated with the extent of violence after BMT.…

This study focuses on event descriptions in two couples' talks about relationship troubles in front of counselors, examining discursive patterns that have a recurring, predictable, sequential pattern. The relationship dynamics of couples' relationship troubles are discussed. (31 references) (MDM)

Studied no-fault divorce law effects on the divorce rate. Results revealed that no-fault divorce laws led to measurable increases in divorce rates. Median family income was the only significant predictor of change in divorce rate; the adjusted post-no-fault divorce rate increased as median family income increased. (RJM)