Previous research has suggested that similarities and differences in specific personality factors are associated with differences in marital stability. Most findings were based on assessments of personality after marriage, thus confounding the effects of marriage on personality. This study was conducted to examine congruence between spouses' personality assessed prior to marriage with the status of the marriage after 3 to 5 years of marriage. Subjects were 72 couples between the ages of 16 and 19 who were referred to a church-affiliated counseling agency prior to obtaining permission from that church to marry. Each partner completed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) prior to obtaining permission to marry. Seven of the 16 personality dimensions of the 16PF have been identified as being predictive of marital status: sizothymia/affectothymia, intelligence, ego weakness/strength, submissiveness/dominance. desurgency/surgency, alaxia/protension, and conservatism/radicalism. These seven dimensions were examined using intraclass and multivariate analyses. The findings clearly suggest a relation between personality assessed prior to marriage and marital instability. Spouses in marriages characterized as stable tended to be similar in intelligence, protension, and radicalism. Spouses in unstable marriages differed in warmth and outgoingness, while being similar in intelligence. (Author/NB)