Essay On Marital Satisfaction

According to Schoen et al. (2002), marital satisfaction is a global evaluation of the state of one’s marriage and a reflection of marital happiness and functioning. From an evolutionary perspective, it can be viewed as a psychological state of regulated mechanisms that monitor the benefits and costs of marriage to a particular person (Shackelford and Buse, 2000). Once Emest Burgess, a respected sociologist, wrote in 1953 that, •urbanization, greater mobilization, individualization, increased secularization, and the emancipation of women had transformed the family from an institution based on law and custom, to one based on companionship and love" (Furstenberg, 1996:35). This statement illustrates that not only societal changes, that have occurred in the last fifty years provide significant changes within the family and spouse behavior, but it also provides some insight into the adjustments that individuals who are married have had to face within the previously relatively well-defined institution of marriage. This means that these pre – defined institution of marriage have undergone significant changes overtime which places serious demands on marital relationship. Contemporary married couples face many challenges that require renegotiation and reformation of previously defined and taken-for granted marital roles and expectations in order to achieve more intimate, companionable committed and adjusted marriages (Baker, Kiger & Riley, 1996:161). As we know that human relationships and marital relationships are never clear-cut and tend to fluctuate and undergo changes across time and circumstance, it renders the investigation of marital relationship dimensions, and the factors that are potential determiners of it. Marital satisfaction ...

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...the quality of the marriage.

Among these studies conducted so far, we find a good number of research work done on marital satisfaction and its potential determiners, mostly in the western countries, but we are aware of this fact that the nature of marital relationship and parenting behavior undergoes significant changes in different cultures. So with the steady modernization and eastern countries drawing in huge influences from the west, an attempt has been made in this study to understand the pattern of relationship that exists between marital satisfaction and parental stress in Indian context. The objectives of the present study are:

1. To find out correlation between different components of parental stress and marital satisfaction in case of both mothers and fathers.

2. To find out what are the predictors of Marital Satisfaction in case of both mother and father.