Researchers are recognizing the importance of examining underlying family functioning in order to understand the varying influences of parental divorce on offspring. The current study investigated the relations among young adults’ attachment styles, their reported family-of-origin functioning and parents’ marital status (divorced or non-divorced), and their current feelings about and attitudes towards marriage, in a sample of 537 young adults, half of whom experienced the divorce of their parents. The results demonstrate that knowledge of divorce status alone does not tell the whole predictive story for a child’s later relational connections and attitudes. In fact, parental marital status may, at times, act as a proxy for lower intimacy, fewer democratic parenting practices, and higher conflict in the family. Family-of-origin functioning, and, in particular, higher levels of intimacy, was the best predictor of the young adult’s secure attachment in close relationships. Although adult children from divorced households did report more negative feelings and opinions of marriage, parents’ marital status, attachment style and family-of-origin functioning variables were all important in explaining their feelings about and attitudes towards marriage. Notably, those with higher levels of attachment avoidance were more likely to express negative feelings and opinions about marriage. It may be that the role of family functioning on attitude towards marriage includes an indirect pathway: Family-of-origin functioning predicts a young adult’s attachment style in close relationships, which, in turn, can have an important influence on their feelings about and attitudes towards the institution of marriage. Ultimately, we document that if a family-of-origin is experienced to be cohesive and close – even if parents do divorce – it appears that young adult children can still feel securely attached in their close relationships and still feel positively towards marriage. Therefore, the “intergenerational transmission of divorce,” is neither automatic nor inevitable and this term should no longer be utilized in the divorce literature. / Graduate

This study examines how demographic and attitudinal variables are associated with Black South African women's desire to marry. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey are used to measure the impact of age, education, living standard, religiosity, urbanicity, cohabitation, and attitudes towards woman's careers, the acceptability of cohabitation, gender roles, unwed childbearing, and the financial and emotional security marriage provides on the desire to marry. Analyses indicate the following are associated with the desire to marry among Black South African women: age, cohabitation, attitudes towards cohabitation, and attitudes towards the financial and emotional security marriage provides. Secondly, data from in-depth interviews with 13 young, college-attending, Black South African women are used to give further insight into the impact of these variables on the desire to marry. Analyses of the interview data suggest that young Black South African women desire to marry but feel constrained in choice of eligible partners by the prevalence of infidelity, AIDS, domestic violence, and economic uncertainty. Additionally, educated, young, Black South African women feel less pressure to marry than older generations due to their emerging economic power and society's increasing acceptance of cohabitation, unwed childbirth, and postponement of marriage.