Although much has been learned from cross-sectional research on marriage, an understanding of how marriages develop, succeed, and fail is best achieved with longitudinal data. In view of growing interest in longitudinal research on marriage, the authors reviewed and evaluated the literature on how the quality and stability of marriages change over time. First, prevailing […]

As social science research data and government surveys increasingly show, the decline in marriagesince the 1960s has been accompanied by a rise in a number of serious social problems. Childrenborn out of wedlock or whose parents divorce are much more likely to experience poverty,abuse, and behavioral and emotional problems, have lower academic achievement, and use […]

Using a couple-centered approach, the authors examined assortative mating on a broad range of variables in a large (N = 291) sample of newlyweds. Couples showed substantial similarity on attitude-related domains but little on personality-related domains. Similarity was not due to social homogamy or convergence. The authors examined linear and curvilinear effects of spouse similarity […]

This brief describes the types of adaptation that are already underway in healthy marriage programs to address culturally diverse populations and provides examples. It identifies some of the key issues and challenges involved in making marriage education relevant for and accessible to culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged populations. It begins by explaining the marriage education […]

A long tradition of research and theory on gender, marriage, and mental health suggests that marital status is more important to men’s psychological wellbeing than women’s while marital quality is more important to women’s wellbeing than men’s. These beliefs rest largely on a theoretical and empirical foundation established in the 1970s, but, despite changes in […]

This article considers the quality of the evidence that marriage confers unique benefits, and that, as such, social policies should be enacted to encourage couples, particularly those with few economic resources, to get married and stay together. Public concern about the future of marriage in the United States, we show, is rooted in demographic changes […]

Professionals generally believe that couples who choose to attend marriage education programs are not as distressed as are clinical couples and that distressed couples are not good candidates for marriage education. We examined these assumptions in 129 married couples who enrolled in a PAIRS, Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (Gordon, 1994), marriage education course. […]

In 1972, feminist scholar Jessie Bernard authored a classic book, The Future of Marriage. In 2003, the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) conference in Vancouver revisited this theme. As conference chair, I picked this theme for three reasons. First, given the importance of marriage, a conference focusing on this topic was long overdue; the […]

This guide is designed to help healthy marriage (HM) and responsible fatherhood (RF) programs work with domestic violence (DV) programs experts in their own communities, help practitioners in these fields understand the benefits of working together and consider some specific ways of doing so, and raise the awareness of public officials, advocates, and community leaders […]

Who would have guessed that the institution of marriage was in so much trouble? In the midst of the battle over same-sex marriage, which seems to be all about declaring marriage something worth fighting for, everyone else seems to be worrying about whether the family as a social institution, and marriage along with it, are […]