Marriages and Families: Changes, Choices, and Constraints Seventh Edition

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Marriages and FamiliesChanges, Choices, and
ConstraintsSeventh Edition Nijole V.
Benokraitis Chapter Ten Marriage and
Communication in Intimate Relationships
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Why Do People Marry?

• In our culture, we assume that people get married
  because they love each other. In fact, the
  principal reasons for marriage reflect moral or
  religious views and social norms that its the
  right things to do. We marry for a variety of
  reasons.

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Some of the Right Reasons for Getting Married

• Love and companionshipthe single greatest
  attraction of marriage is continuous, intimate
  companionship with an intimate partner.
• Childrena very traditional reason for getting
  married.
• Adult identityyou have finally grown up!
• Commitment and personal fulfillmentan
  overwhelming number of Americans (88) say
  marriage should be a life-long commitment.
• Continuity and permanencemarriage promises
  stability!

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Some Wrong Reasons for Getting Married

• Social legitimacygetting married to legitimate
  an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
• Social pressuresometimes parents pressure their
  children that havent married, especially if they
  are pregnant.
• Economic securitysome marry others for their
  moneytypically these marriages dont last.
• Rebellion or revengeyoung people sometimes do
  this to their parents.
• Practical solutions to problemsthese types of
  relationships tend not to last either.

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What Do We Expect from Marriage?

• Marriage rituals are a cultural rite of passage
  in almost every culture.
• Traditionally,an engagement formalizes a couples
  decision to marry.
• It sends a hands off message to other
  interested parties.
• It gives both partners a chance to become better
  acquainted with their future in-laws.
• It provides each partner with information about a
  prospective spouses medical conditions.
• It legitimates secular or religious premarital
  counseling.
• It signals the intent to make the union permanent.

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The Wedding

• Typically legalizes and legitimizes the marriage
  to family, friends, and witnesses.
• Does a marriage last longer if it is traditional?
  There are no national data, but family
  practitioners emphasize that the wedding is less
  important than the marriage.

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Love and Prenuptial Agreements

• Prenuptial agreements are common among the very
  wealthy. There are advantages and disadvantages
  to prenuptial agreements.

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Types of Marriages

• Types of Marriage in the United States
• On the basis of a study of 400 upper-middle-class
  Cuber and Haroff (1965) identified five types of
  marriages.

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Types of Marriages

• Conflict-habituated marriagethe partners both
  fight verbally and physically but do not believe
  that fighting is a good reason for a divorce.

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Types of Marriages

• Passive-congenial marriagethe partners have a
  low emotional investment in their marriage and
  have low expectations of each other. Fairly
  independent of each other, they often find
  intimacy in other relationships. They often both
  maintain separate activities and interests.

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Types of Marriages

• Devitalized marriagethe partners were deeply in
  love when they married. As the years go by, they
  spend their time together raising children,
  entertaining, and meeting community
  responsibilities, but begin to do so out of
  obligation rather than love.

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Types of Marriages

• Vital marriagethe partners lives are closely
  intertwined. They spend a great deal of time
  together, resolve conflicts through comprise, and
  often make sacrifices. They consider sex
  pleasurable and necessary.

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Types of Marriages

• Total marriage similar to a vital marriage, but
  more encompassing. Partners participate in each
  others lives at all levels and have few areas of
  tension or hostility.

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What Is Important in a Successful Marriage?

• Compatibility
• Flexibility
• Positive attitude
• Communication and conflict resolution
• Emotional support

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Cross-Cultural Variations in Marriage Types

• LAT (Living Apart Together)
• Example Chinamen work temporarily in nearby
  urban areas while women and children stay in the
  rural areas.

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Marital Success and Happiness

• Social scientists studied people who had been
  married over 50 years. They all had one important
  thing in commona sense of humor.

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Are Married Couples Happy?

• As an overall group, women tend to be less happy
  in marriages than men.
• Because happiness is a self-reported and
  subjective measure, its impossible to know how
  respondents define it in marriage.

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How Does Marriage Affect Health?

• Health benefits of marriage
• Selection EffectHealthy people are attracted to
  other healthy people, thus they select to be with
  others who are healthy.
• Protection EffectMarriage itself makes people
  healthier. Receiving emotional, social, and
  financial support actually helps make people
  healthier.

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Gender and Health

• Many studies report that women are less healthy
  than men who are married. On average, women live
  longer than men, but unlike husbands, many wives
  experience depression and other health problems.
• Why are husbands healthier? They enjoy emotional
  capital, because wives promote nurturance.
• If their wives work more than 40 hours a week,
  however, their husbands are less healthy than
  other husbands.

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Marital Quality and Health

• Marriage and life satisfactiongenerally married
  people tend to be happier than unmarried people
  because marriage makes an already happy life
  better.
• Troubled marriagesthe quality of our marriages
  is critical for our emotional and physical
  well-being.

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Marital Roles

• Marital roles are the specific ways in which we
  interactit defines the behavior and the
  structure of the marriage.
• New roleswhether his marriage is better than
  hers is debatable, but there are many gender
  differences in modern marriage roles.

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Marital Roles

• Wifework includes
• Performing up to ¾ of the unpaid housework
• Assuming total responsibility for the husbands
  emotional caretaking
• Taking full responsibility for child care and
  drudgework
• Monitoring his physical well-being
• Preparing meals tailored to his tastes
• Maintaining his extended family relationships

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More Roles

• Marriage also increases the number of roles that
  each partner performs, thereby raising the
  possibility of role conflict.

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Gender

• The amount of housework that American women and
  men do has changed considerably. Men do
  considerably more housework now than they did in
  the past. However, of the two, women are doing
  considerably more than their husbands.

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Children

• Child rearing is highly rewarding, but it is also
  a 24-hour, 7-day job! It is physically and
  emotionally exhausting.
• Women do more housework and men do less when the
  children arrive.
• Social classthe division of household labor also
  has to do with social class. The higher a wife's
  socioeconomic class the more likely it is that
  her husband will help with the tasks.

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Domestic Rolesand Marital Quality

• Men are usually happy in their marriage when
  theres greater equality in decision-making but
  not in housework.
• Women are happier when theres greater equality
  in decision-making and when the spouses share
  more equally in the housework.
• What happens when there is a gender gap in
  domestic roles? In time, women feel worn out and
  may become dissatisfied with the relationship.

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How Marriages Change Throughout the Life Course

• The Early Years
• After the vowsthe first year involves basic
  adjustment. One adjustment for both is the new
  basic roles of husband and wife. One new basic
  role for both includes setting the role above all
  others.
• Settling inif both partners grew up in a home
  where there was equality, they are much more
  likely to share in everything equally.

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Young Children

• Socializing children takes enormous time and
  patience. Families with young children spend
  much of their time living up to cultural
  expectations.
• Adolescentsraising adolescents is difficult.
  The chance of family stress increases as the
  child gets older.

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Marriage at Midlife

• The most common adjustment at midlife is divorce
  and remarriage.
• Intergenerational tiesOur family of origin plays
  a significant role in shaping our values over our
  lifetime.

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Relationshipswith the In-Laws

• After couples marry, the most squabbles are
  between the female in-laws. Brides may feel that
  they dont yet know their place in the family.
• We dont have clearly delineated roles for what
  elders in our society elders are supposed to do.
• Tension is compounded because of generational
  differences, particularly after the birth of a
  grandchild.

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Marriage in Later Life

• Many older couples describe their marriage as the
  best years of their lives. They have developed
  trust and intimacy over the years but in later
  life another adjustment has to be maderetirement
  and new life goals.
• Adjustment to retirement can be difficult for
  some, especially for men when their jobs have
  generally been their identity.

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Communication

• Communication is a key to successful
  relationships. Our most intimate communication
  is usually with our families, but being able to
  communicate well among our friends and others can
  help as well.

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Sex Differences in Communication

• Males and females do communicate differently, but
  just how differently is still up for debate.
• Women tend to use more communication to develop
  relationships. Women talk more on average per a
  day.
• Men tend to use less words per day and they give
  speech to get special points across.

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What Do CouplesFight About?

• Men complain that women give them the silent
  treatment, bring up things the men have done in
  the remote past, are too critical and stubborn in
  never giving in.
• Women complain that men forget important dates,
  dont work hard enough at their jobs, nosily burp
  or pass gas, and stare at other women.

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Money

• Nationally, 51 of American dont talk about
  money before marriage and another 4 lie about
  their finances.
• In another national survey, 84 of couples said
  that money creates tension in their marriage
  several times a week or more.

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Housework

• There is considerable concern over housework and
  who has to do it. 24 of husbands and 31 of
  wives say that household chores are a major
  source of friction in their household.

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Fidelity and Sex

• In practically every recent national survey,
  sexual infidelity is at the top of the list of
  concerns that couples have.

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Children

• Children can cause tremendous joy and tremendous
  strain on a relationship.
• Partners need to talk about parenting before they
  have a child.

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Conflict

• Conflict is normal, but how a couple deals with
  it is important.
• Resolution approaches
• Intimate couples typically use four techniques to
  end, though not necessarily resolve, conflict.

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Conflict
Accommodationone person submits to the
other. Compromisepartners find a middle
ground. Standoffthe disputants drop the argument
without resolving it. Withdrawthe disputant can
refuse to continue with the argument.