Browsing by Subject "Marriage"
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Item African American couples : socio-cultural factors impacting marriage trends, reflections on marriageability, and a systematic review of culturally grounded couple and marriage relationship intervention(2016-05) Mikle, Krystallynne Shanielle; Gilbert, Dorie J.; Franklin, Cynthia; Luquet, Wade; Padilla, YolandaRacial and ethnic minority couples experience unique relationship discord factors; yet, marriage and couple approaches have not intentionally targeted racial/ethnic minorities, especially African American couples who are disproportionately impacted by relationship dissolution. Research shows African American couples persevere through marital discord by relying on protective factors unique to their culture; these factors are a strong sense of community, supportive family, kinship, and ideals focused around spirituality and culture. Although this is true, few studies have systematically analyzed the extent to which current relationship intervention programs integrate cultural components unique to African Americans to effectively reduce relationship discord for African American couples. This dissertation forms a comprehensive body of literature by examining the socio-cultural factors impacting African American relationships, exploring African American women’s reflections about marriageability, and evaluating the cultural components of interventions to reduce African American relationship discord. The first article utilizes a historical-ecological perspective to review the scholarly discourse on marriage and relationship trends among African American couples, and delineates socio-cultural factors which collectively have contributed to declining marriageability rates for African American couples over the past 12 decades. The second article is a phenomenological study of young, African American female students’ blogs about the current marriage/relationship trends. The women expressed frustration about the low marriageability rates and suggested culturally relevant marriage and relationship interventions as instrumental to fostering healthy African American marriages. The third article presents a systematic review of African American couples relationship education (CRE) and marriage relationship education (MRE) programs incorporating Africentric theory or cultural factors as a theoretical underpinnings. Seven studies of four curriculum-based interventions used with African American couples demonstrated that inclusion of Africentric or culturally grounded components contribute to the effectiveness of CRE/MRE programs with African American couples by promoting culturally- relevant healthy relationship skills. Further, the impact of socio-cultural-historical factors on African American relationships was an integral component to the effectiveness of the CRE/MRE programs. This dissertation contributes to a virtually untouched research area by delineating the decades-long socio-cultural-historical factors impacting African American marriages, uncovering the insights of African American women, and systematically examining how Africentric and other culturally-grounded components foster effective couples interventions for African American couples.Item The baby will come, the ring can wait : differences between married and unmarried first-time mothers in Chile(2010-12) Salinas, Viviana; Potter, Joseph E.; Osborne, Cynthia; Hopkins, Kristine L.; Regnerus, Mark D.; Roberts, Bryan R.The proportion of children born outside of marriage in Chile increased from 15.9 percent in 1960 to 64.6 percent in 2008. Similar increases have been taken elsewhere as indicative of a Second Demographic Transition (SDT). In this dissertation, I study differences between married and unmarried mothers in Chile and the reasons why such a large proportion of children are born outside of marriage, with the goal of understanding whether the demographic changes we are observing in the country are part of a global movement towards the SDT. The data comes from a postpartum survey implemented in Santiago, the capital city. I analyze differences between women according to the family arrangement they live in, including married women in nuclear households, married women in extended households, cohabiters in nuclear households, cohabiters in extended households, visiting mothers, and single mothers. I consider women’s socioeconomic wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, social support, attitudes and values, and reproductive health. The results show large demographic and socioeconomic differences, marking the socioeconomic advantage of married women in nuclear households, who are the oldest, and the disadvantage of cohabiters in extended households, visiting and single mothers, who are the youngest women in the sample. Married women in extended households and cohabiters in nuclear households are between these two poles. Differences in emotional wellbeing exist, benefiting married women in nuclear households, but they are not so large. Differences in social support continue delineating married women in nuclear households as a privileged group, but visiting mothers appear as a highly supported group too. There are not large differences in attitudes and values, as most women continue holding conservative attitudes on family issues, and most unmarried mothers plan to marry. Differences in reproductive health are large, showing that unplanned births and contraceptive failure are high in the underprivileged and youngest groups. Unmarried women seem to accept their pregnancies with no pressure to marry, and to give priority to other goals, such as their careers and homeownership, before the wedding, which they do not discard for the future. Under these circumstances, it is hard to interpret recent demographic changes in Chile as a SDT.Item Behavioral reciprocity in marriage: a study of within-day similarity in affection and negativity(2002) Smith, Shanna Elise; Huston, Ted L.The current study uses behavioral data gathered from marital partners across a sample of days to estimate the extent of each couple’s reciprocity in both affectionate and negative behavior, as measured via an index of within-day similarity. Analyses explore the extent of within-day similarity in both positive and negative behavior for a sample of married couples, describe the degree to which within-day similarity changes over the first two years of marriage, and investigate how those patterns relate to both concurrent and long-term marital satisfaction and stability. Results indicate that within-day similarity in neither affection nor negativity is a strong predictor of concurrent satisfaction or long-term marital quality or stability. Furthermore, neither class of within-day similarity systematically increases or decreases over the first two years of marriage (neither across the entire sample of couples nor within specific long-term marital outcome groups). Some marginal effects for within-day similarity on marital satisfaction, however, indicate that: (1) affectionate within-day similarity tends to have little or no positive relationship with marital satisfaction across the first several years of marriage, but gains an inverse relationship with marital satisfaction after thirteen years of marriage; and (2) within-day similarity in negativity has a direct but weak relationship with marital satisfaction for wives who have been married for two years. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of assessing marital reciprocity using a variety of temporal frames.Item Boundary disturbances in marriage : links with triadic family interactions(2006-05) Loch, Lisa, 1973-; Jacobovitz, DeborahIn the present study, role disturbances in the marriage, that is, partners treating one another as a parent or child, predicted triadic enmeshment and triadic controlling behavior, the triadic boundary disturbances found to forecast ADHD and depressive symptoms in middle childhood above and beyond the emotional climate of the marriage. The ratio of positive to negative affectivity was negatively related to triadic disengagement, indicating that positive affectivity in the marriage predicted engagement, or generationally and developmentally appropriate levels of closeness between family members, two years later. Dyadic flexibility was negatively associated with triadic enmeshment, or the extent to which one parent turned to the child or the other parent to meet his or her unmet needs in a way that violated generational boundaries or appropriate family roles.Item Chasing prince charming : partnering consequences of holding unrealistic standards for a spouse(2012-08) Bredow, Carrie Ann Barth; Huston, Ted L.; Loving, Timothy J.; Neff, Lisa A.; Anderson, Edward R.; Vangelisti, Anita L.Although social scientists studying mate selection have generally assumed that people’s standards for a marriage partner shape their marital behavior, systematic investigations of the role of mate standards in partnering have been rare. Using survey data collected from 502 unmarried individuals and their peer informants, the present study used a novel, residual-based approach to quantify the attainability (rather than the absolute stringency) of people’s standards for a spouse. Regression analyses using this index of the attainability of people’s standards revealed that holding less realistic standards for a marriage partner was associated with greater difficulty establishing satisfying romantic relationships, lower expectations to marry one’s current partner, and lower levels of psychological and behavioral investment in finding a suitable partner and marrying. Curiously, the attainability of people’s spousal standards did not predict their general beliefs about whether they will eventually marry. Overall, these findings strongly support the idea that holding less realistic standards for a spouse shapes people’s partnering experiences in ways that may deter their future entry into marriage.Item Do the quantity and quality of time couples share differ by household income?(2020-05-14) Schouweiler, Megan Tess; Williamson, Hannah C.; Neff, Lisa; Gleason, MarciOne theorized explanation for the disparity in divorce rates between low- and higher-income couples is a difference in the amount of time couples spend together. Time is an important component of relationship maintenance but increasing demands outside of the home are decreasing the amount of shared time between spouses (Nomaguchi, Milkie, Beard, & Thompson, 2019). Low-income couples may experience the greatest time deficits as they face a greater number of stressors that take up time, diminishing the quantity of time they have available. They may also need to use the time they do have available to deal with stressors rather than engaging in more enjoyable leisure-like activities, diminishing the quality of time they share. Using a sample of N = 26,557 respondents from the American Time Use Survey, the current study examined whether household income was associated with how much time married couples spend together, and how happy and how stressed respondents reported feeling while spending time with their spouse. Results indicated that low-income couples spent more time together overall, and more time together in leisure activities, and reported greater levels of happiness and stress during shared time compared to higher earning couples. Although these findings provide evidence that low-income couples do not lack shared time together, spending time at home with one’s spouse may not be beneficial if that time is characterized by high levels of stress, suggesting that quality of time may be more important in understanding the disparity in divorce rates between low- and higher-income couples.Item Emotional climate, sex, and satisfaction in marriage : does sex really matter?(2006-12) Hartzell, Allyson Camille; Huston, Ted L.This study examined sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction, and marital satisfaction in connection with the emotional climate within which it exists, using data from a 13-year longitudinal study about marriage. First, affection and negativity were used to predict sexual frequency. Second, affection, negativity and sexual frequency were used to predict spouses' sexual satisfaction. Third, sexual frequency and spouses' sexual satisfaction were used to predict marital satisfaction. A positive association was found between affection and sexual frequency, whereas no association was found between negativity and sexual frequency. Affection was found to be associated with higher sexual satisfaction for husbands in the early years of marriage and negativity was associated with lower sexual satisfaction for both spouses. An association was also found between one's own sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction. No association was found between sexual frequency and marital satisfaction when the emotional climate was considered.Item An examination of temporal agency in courtship narratives(2012-05) Kurlak, Rebecca Mary; McGlone, Matthew S., 1966-; Vangelisti, Anita L.The reported study investigated temporal agency (i.e., the assignment of cause for temporal shift) in newlyweds’ courtship narratives. Transcripts of courtship narratives generated by each partner of 23 recently married couples (approximately 3 months) participating in the PAIR project (Huston, McHale, & Crouter, 1986) were analyzed for the presence of different linguistic strategies for encoding temporal shift. Statements were coded as “human agency assignments” when they assigned the cause of temporal shift to humans (e.g., we started seeing each other in June); statements that assigned temporal shift to abstract entities such as the events themselves (e.g., the summer started out well for us) or to the relationship (e.g., the relationship started to slow down) were coded as “abstract agency assignments.” The frequency with which narrators mentioned positiveand negative emotions was also coded to explore the possibility that emotional valence mediated agency assignments. The frequency of different agency assignments and emotion words were considered in the context of portions of the courtship accounts that narrators designated as describing “upturns” (episodes that increased the likelihood of marriage) or “downturns” (episodes that decreased marriage likelihood). Results indicated that the frequency of human agency assignments and positive emotion mention were higher in upturn than downturn narrative segments; in contrast, abstract agency assignments and negative emotion mention were more frequent in downturn than upturn segments. Subsequent analyses indicated that positive word mention partially mediated human agency assignments in upturns and that negative word mention partially mediated abstract agency assignments in downturns. These findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating an association between the emotional valence of an event and temporal agency assignment: In general, people assign temporal agency to themselves when describing positive events, but prefer abstract agency assignments for negative events (McGlone & Pfiester, 2009).Item The Goldilocks Principle : do deviations from the average courtship predict divorce?(2009-12) Smith, Ashley Michelle; Loving, Timothy J.; Huston, Ted L.; Neff, Lisa A.The benefits of being average were examined within the context of romantic relationships by focusing on courtship progression and events for 164 married couples. The courtship progression was captured using a graph of the fluctuations in the percentage chance of marriage for each spouse from when couples first began dating up until the wedding day. Five factors were then used to capture the graph: Time elapsed to progress from 25 to 75% chance of marriage, turbulence in chance of marriage values, average change in percent chance of marriage between relationship events, courtship length, and the sum of squared deviations from a straight line connecting when couples first started dating until their marriage date. Couples also reported on the timing of important relationship events (i.e., meeting parents, first fell in love, first sexual intercourse, and engagement) that were then compared to the order of the average courtship event progression. Deviations from the average courtship in terms of either graphical or event indicators did not significantly predict whether or not couples divorced in the first 13 years of marriage.Item Health work in long-term gay, lesbian, and straight couples(2011-05) Reczek, Corinne Elizabeth; Umberson, Debra; Williams, Christine; Gilbert, Dorie; Raley, R. Kelly; Gonzalez-Lopez, GloriaCompared to men, women devote substantially more attention and effort toward enhancing the health of their spouses. Yet, scholars have been unable to explain why this gender gap persists. Women also do more unpaid work in the home than men, and a significant literature explains the origins of this gender gap. In order to better understand why women do more to enhance the health of their spouse, this dissertation maps well-tested theory on unpaid work in the home on the literature on social integration and health to develop the theoretical construct of health work. Health work is defined as the activities and dialogue concerned with enhancing others’ health habits. After developing this theoretical construct, this dissertation turns to a qualitative examination of health work dynamics in 61 straight, gay, and lesbian couples living in the United States (N = 122). Findings reveal two distinct ways that partners work to shape one another’s health habits. Respondents in all couple types describe specialized health work, whereby one partner does health work over the course of the relationship. In straight couples, women perform the bulk of health work and men were the primary recipients of health work. Individuals rely on gendered discourses of difference to explain these unequal health work dynamics. Cooperative health work, whereby both partners perform health work in mutually reinforcing ways, emerges nearly exclusively in gay and lesbian couples. Individuals rely on discourses of similarity to explain why they perform cooperative health work. Findings reveal that health work processes not only depend on gender, but also on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and the gender composition of a couple. Additionally, this dissertation finds that partners not only do health work to promote one another’s healthy habits, but that partners also attempt to promote one another’s unhealthy habits. The implications for the promotion of both healthy and unhealthy habits are discussed.Item The household production of men's and women's health in the United States(2013-08) Brown, Dustin Chad; Hayward, Mark D.; Hummer, Robert A.The inverse association between individuals' own education and adverse health outcomes is well established, but the influence of other people's education -- particularly those with close social ties or who are family members -- and adult health outcomes is not. The material and non-material resources available to individuals via their own education likely are shared within a marriage to become resources at the household or family-level. Research on spousal education and adult health outcomes is sparse -- especially in the United States. Therefore, this dissertation examines how husbands and wives' education combine within marriage to influence each other's self-rated health and annual risk of death in the United States. The analyses utilize two nationally representative data sources: the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File (NHIS-LMF). Chapter Two establishes an inverse association between spousal education and poor/fair self-rated health among married adults in the United States. The results also showed that spousal education attenuated the association between one's own education and fair/poor self-rated health more for married women than married men and age-specific analyses revealed that these differences were largest among married persons ages 45-64. Chapter Three reveals that individuals' own education and their spouse's education each share an inverse association with the annual risk of death among married adults. Although this association generally does not vary by gender, spousal education apparently is a more important determinant of all-cause mortality risk among married non-Hispanic whites in comparison to married non-Hispanic blacks. Age-specific analyses also suggest that the influence of own and spousal education on adult mortality risk weakened with increasing age. Chapter Four assesses life expectancy differentials between men and women in different marital status groups at different points in the educational distribution. The results imply that spousal education substantially contributes to life expectancy disparities between married and unmarried persons. The results also imply that focusing only on the relationship between married persons' own education and life expectancy masks substantial heterogeneity within educational groups attributable to spousal education. Overall, the findings strongly suggest that education is a shared or household health resource among husbands and wives.Item How representations of the parental marriage predict marital quality between partners during the transition to parenthood(2004) Curran, Melissa Anne; Hazen, Nancy Lynn.This study examined how couples’ representations of the parental marriage predict emotional attunement between marital partners prenatally and following the transition to parenthood, 24 months postpartum. Couple partners (N = 121) were interviewed individually about their parents’ marriage prenatally. Two aspects of these representations were assessed: content (memories of conflict, affection, and communication in the parents’ marriage) and process (making connections between their own and their parents’ marriage and presenting a believable, consistent picture of the parents’ marriage). Emotional attunement (i.e., dyadic emotional communication and connection) was rated from couple interactions observed prenatally and at 24 months (N = 89 couples). Surra and Bohman (1991) proposed that during relatively stable times in couple relationships, individuals use lower order, automatic processing when evaluating relationships, whereas their thinking during relatively unstable times is characterized by higher order, extensive processing. Thus, it was hypothesized that individuals would automatically recreate the content of the marital patterns they recalled from childhood in their own marital interactions prenatally, since this is assumed to be a relatively stable time compared to the postnatal period. Based on attachment theory and methods (Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1988; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2002), it was also hypothesized that individuals high on process would score higher on emotional attunement both prenatally and postnatally, since they should view their parents’ marriage more objectively and work on avoiding negative aspects of their parents’ marriage at any time. The role of content during the relatively unstable postnatal period is less clear, however. When high-processing individuals automatically draw on recollections of the parental marriage, will they recreate positive recollections, or will positive memories result in disappointment and reduced emotional attunement? Results from path analyses revealed that prenatally, husbands and wives high on process showed higher emotional attunement toward their partner. Postnatally, wives who recalled low content using high process showed a greater increase in emotional attunement toward their partner than did wives in other groups, indicating that for high processing women, anticipating some problems and stresses about marriage following the transition to parenthood may result in greater attention to the marital relationship.Item "I'm sorry this hasn't been a fairy tale" : examining romance reality TV through The bachelor(2011-05) Hernandez, Virginia Rose; Sherry, Alissa René; O'Brien, JodiRomance reality programming has become a major player in the television field, with the most successful shows garnering huge ratings and massive audiences over the course of numerous seasons. But while the concept of finding love in a competitive environment on the national stage is new, romance reality TV programs seem to regenerate outdated stereotypes which work in a retrograde fashion to envisage love in traditional, pre-feminist heteronormative and patriarchal structures. Combining a background of literature on reality TV which gives insight to the manipulative tendencies of the industry; feminist scholarship on the acculturating and indoctrinating nature of classic fairy tales; and writings on the prevalence of postfeminist ideology that emphasizes self-surveillance/subjectification, the rhetoric of self-empowerment, and natural differences between the sexes, this thesis examines one of the most ubiquitous romance reality shows, The bachelor. Through the lens of nine tropes--beauty, passivity, marriage, victimization, vilification, romance rhetoric, gender roles, consumerism, and the male gaze--I analyze a full season of episodes, tallying the occurrences in each category. Using these tally numbers as general indicators and providing examples of each theme, I argue that the lessons conveyed to audiences by The bachelor and other romance reality programs bear a striking resemblance to classic fairy tales morals in which positive outcomes for heroines directly correlate to their perceived femininity, including conventionally feminine virtues like physical beauty, moral turpitude, and adherence to normative gender roles. The presence of postfeminism in the media contributes to making these outdated fairy tales themes seem congruent with female agency and empowerment by uncritically casting the failure to find love as a personal one. At the same time, men are placed in advantageous positions of authority and power, affirming the inevitability and desirability of patriarchal relationship arrangements.Item In search of "the cup of tea" : intersections of migration, gender, and marriage in transitional China(2012-05) Wang, Yu; Yu, Wei-Hsin; Roberts, ByranWidely considered the world’s largest migration, the ongoing rural-to-urban migration in China is unprecedented in terms of scale and impact. Millions of Chinese peasants flood to cities in waves to try their fortune. Among them, dagongmei, literally translated as “working sisters,” who are single, young, and undereducated rural women working in cities, are believed to be one of the most marginalized communities. Their segregation and discrimination in the labor market has been well documented. As a major life event, their marriages have also received academic attention, but the marriage of dagongmei in current literature is generally considered a means towards achieving social advancement, often terminating their migratory trajectory. Few studies address the question of how physical mobility and economic independence alter the social relations of dagongmei in their pursuit of dating and potential spouses across the rural-urban divide. The separations of dagongmei from patriarchal families empower them, but their legally classified rural citizenship and their lack of cultural and social capital constrain their aspirations. To closely examine how individual agency interacts with familial control and societal constraints, I conduct in-depth interviews with dagongmei, applying feminist standpoint theory, to hear their experiences concerning the social processes of mate selection. By situating marriage as a dynamic decision-making process, I identify three subgroups of women: independent seekers, resigned negotiators, and tradition reformers. My overall conclusion is that young rural women are empowered by their migration to pursue major life goals such as marriage, but traditional gender ideology still operates to confine their roles as daughters and wives in a transitional society with competing capitalist and socialist characteristics.Item The influence of religion in adolescence on adolescents’ attitude toward marital timing(2012-08) Redford, Kristen Lee; Regnerus, Mark; Woodberry, Robert D.Existing research identified strong links between religion and marriage behaviors, but few sources have evaluated the effect of religion on marital attitudes. This study sought to examine the relationship between adolescent religious affiliation and religiosity and the age at which adolescents wish to marry. Using the National Study of Youth and Religion, results showed that Christian adolescents in America wish to marry sooner at statistically significant levels than non-Christian adolescents, and that within Christian denominations, Evangelical Protestant and Mormon adolescents wish to marry sooner than Mainline Protestants. Religiosity had a less statistically significant effect on the marital timing attitude than religious affiliation, challenging findings of some of the existing literature. A reciprocal relationship was also examined to see if being married at younger ages predicted placement in certain religious affiliations and a change in religiosity. This study contributes to existing literature on the relationship between religion and marriage and family by shedding light on effectiveness of the transmission of family values affirmed by Christian denominations to their adolescent members. These findings help better understand the increase in the age of first marriage, as fewer adolescents and young adults claim a religious affiliation, reducing the number of people that want to get married at younger ages.Item Making sense of money in marriage(2011-05) Pope, Mark Todd; Huston, Ted L.; Loving, Timothy J.; Kitt, Karrol A.; Neff, Lisa A.; Vangelisti, Anita L.This 14-year longitudinal study extends previous research on money in marriage by using multiple measures of money to predict seven dimensions of marital quality. Data collection began when the couples were newlyweds and extended through the first decade and a half of marriage, thus making it possible to examine the effects of money on marital quality across time. Overall, the findings indicate that money affects marital quality. Specifically, low income was associated behavioral negativity over the entire course of the fourteen year study. Low-income couples who were content with their financial situations were more satisfied than low-income couples that were unhappy about their financial situation. The effects of money on marriage increased over time such that by the time couples were nearly a decade a half into marriage couple’s income was associated with both positive marital behaviors and marital satisfaction. Similarly, the link between financial satisfaction and marital satisfaction emerged over time. The implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.Item Marital hegemony and alternatives to monogamy in 21st-century American television(2020-05-01) Kollin, Michaela Sophia; Beltran, Mary C.Television’s heritage as a domestic medium has encouraged a subtle social conservatism that places primacy on the nuclear family, and by extension, on committed, monogamous relationships. While alternatives to monogamy are not completely absent from television, these alternatives are presented as temporary and ultimately unsatisfying experiments that primarily serve to bring characters closer to the inevitable monogamous relationships they actually want. In my thesis, I explore this tendency to establish marriage and monogamy as norms by analyzing two types of deviance from this norm: casual sex, and non-monogamous relationships. In order to perform this analysis, I examine sitcoms and light melodramas such as Two and a Half Men (CBS, 2003-2015), How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 2005-2014), The L Word (Showtime, 2004-2009), Casual (Hulu, 2015-2018), Insecure (HBO, 2016-) and You Me Her (Audience Network, 2016-2020). I also scrutinize whether these alternatives are portrayed as empowering and healthy or pathetic and deviant, and how race, class, sexual orientation, gender and time period influence whether these characters and their non-monogamous relationships are framed as empowered and empowering. Television both reflects and perpetuates social norms, so examining how television treats non-monogamy and/or casual sex can help illuminate the types of sexual behavior American society views as good and right and which types of behavior it condemns as unhealthy or damaging. Even as television has become slightly better at representing gay characters, the types of relationships characters tend to be in, whether gay or straight, are often heteronormative in their monogamous, dyadic fidelity. Additionally, regardless of the genders of the people in the relationship, in narratives focusing on characters who engage in casual sex, the more traditionally masculine role of pursuer is also framed as more empowered, while the traditionally feminine role of the pursued is portrayed as a comparatively disempowered gatekeeper who must reject the womanizer’s advances in order to demonstrate her own agency and level-headed self-interest.Item Marital strain and psychological distress : a dyadic and gendered approach(2017-12-01) Garcia, Michael Alexis; Umberson, Debra; Glass, JenniferMarital strain is detrimental to psychological well-being and can have long-term consequences for health. Past research on marital strain and psychological distress has focused on only one spouse’s perception of marital strain and has centered on heterosexual married couples, raising questions over how the relationship between marital strain and psychological distress may differ for men and women in same-sex marriages. In the present study, I analyze dyadic diary data from 756 individuals in 378 gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marriages to consider how marital strain of each spouse influences psychological distress in potentially different ways across gender and union types. Results indicate that both respondent and spouse appraisals of marital strain are associated with increased psychological distress for all respondents. Women married to men are at an increased risk for distress from respondent-reported marital strain while women in same- and different-sex marriages are especially vulnerable to spouse-reported strain. These findings highlight the importance of dyadic data as well as the inclusion of same-sex couples when examining the relationship between gender, marital strain, and psychological distress.Item Marriage and physical health : selection, causal and conditional effects on weight gain and obesity(2012-12) Bartolic, Silvia Katherine; Anderson, Edward Robert; Vandewater, Elizabeth A.; Kim, Su Yeong; Gleason, Marci; Umberson, Deborah; Hayward, MarkDespite being linked to many health benefits, marriage is known to be related to weight gain and obesity (e.g. Hedblad et al., 2002; Lipowicz, Gronkiewicz, & Malina, 2002). Those who have studied physical health outcomes of marriage have taken three different approaches: 1) analysing selection effects, 2) investigating protection effects, and 3) focusing less on the discrete comparison of marrieds versus others and more on factors that might make marriage more or less beneficial, such as the quality of the interaction. The focus of this research is to examine this last approach. Could the quality of one’s marriage, level of barriers to leaving, sex, and age provide insight into the relationship between marriage and weight gain? Data is from the Americans Changing Lives survey Waves I-III. Stability paths, marital protection paths, relationship commitment paths and psychological stress paths are outlined. The moderating effects of barriers to leaving, sex and age are also discussed. Cross sectional analyses show that marital quality decreases depression while barriers to leaving increases depression with an interaction effect at Wave III where high marital quality decreases depression when barriers are low; when barriers are high, marital quality has a stronger effect on depression. These effects are stronger for the young than the old and for females compared to males. Longitudinal analyses show that marital quality and barriers to leaving are positively related to depression over time. The same effects occur when examined by age (barriers however, are no longer significant) and depression is negatively related to weight gain (only at Wave II) for the old. Analyses by sex show that barriers moderate the effect of marital quality on depression over time for men but not women at Wave III. Once again marital quality increases depression for both sexes but depression decreases weight concurrently and increases weight over time for men. Overall, results show modest support for the links between marital quality and barriers to leaving on depression and little support for its effect on weight. Results should be interpreted with caution as suppressor effects may be occurring and model fit was poor in the longitudinal models.Item Marriage in Iranian cinema : a metaphorical platform for the discussion of women’s rights in post-revolutionary Iran(2017-05) Sale, Caitlin Jane; Atwood, Blake Robert, 1983-This thesis exams the use of marriage as a metaphorical platform in Iranian cinema for the discussion women’s rights issues outside of films classified as fīlmhā-ye zanān (‘women’s films). Drawing on theoretical frameworks of ‘consciousness raising’ and ‘cofabulation,’ analysis of these films focuses on the relationship between society and law as it is represented through marriage in film. Through a combination of content and contextual analysis, this thesis discusses the political, social and religious changes that took place in Iran between the Pahlavi Dynasty (1925–1941) and the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005) in order to establish the situation of women during these periods and women’s organization movements. In doing so, we can see that the discussion of women’s rights issues in Iran, although subdued in society, was able to emerge in film and break away from the generic boundaries of fīlmhā-ye zanān (women’s films) via the metaphorical platform of marriage into other film genres. By using marriage as the site for discussion in film, representations of women’s rights in these films raised the consciousness of Iranian society and brought more open discussion of these issues to the public sphere.
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