Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 466-507).

Thesis (M.S.) -- Brigham Young University. Marriage and Family Therapy Program, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p.44-47).

Thesis (Ph. D.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1999. / Bibliography: p. 309-333.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 1992. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 466-507) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Also available in print.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

This investigation explored the relationship between married individuals' self-reports of their expectations, interaction, spousal bonding, and marital quality. From two universities, two hundred and thirty-seven currently enrolled and married students volunteered to provide the information on these factors via a semistructured self-administered questionnaire. The typical respondent was a female between 31 and 35 years old who had been married 8 years to her first spouse, had one child at home; and was a senior in college. Of the ten independent variables examined three variables contributed the most to individuals' self-reported evaluation of their marital quality. These were the time spent each week with their spouse, satisfaction with the quality of time spent with their spouse, and when the greatest level of bonding experiences occurred. Five significant findings emerged from the study. First, respondents' greater satisfaction with the quality of time spent with their spouse was consistently the strongest predictor of higher marital quality. Second, respondents who bonded more with their spouse after marriage or equally before and after marriage reported higher marital quality than those who bonded more before marriage. Third, the amount of time spouses spent together influenced respondents' reported marital quality. Fourth, spousal bonding has a very strong influence on individuals' self-reported marital quality. The influence of spousal bonding upon marital quality has been neglected by marriage and family researchers. Finally, joint activities such as talking, eating and cooking at home, sex, activities shared with children, and church related activities were identified by respondents as consistently promoting both a higher quality level for the time spent with their spouse and with their spousal bonding. Future research on marital quality should use larger and more representative samples, involve personal interviews, use longitudinal data collection, and perform time series or path analysis.

This research seeks to explore the development of the Marital Life Course Perspective as a conceptual framework for describing and understanding marital life events and marital transitions. The study’s orientation is guided by the Life Course Perspective (Glen Elder Jr.) as a theoretical framework and draws on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Jonathan Smith) and Concept Analysis (Walker & Avant) as methodological approaches. One hundred and thirty (130) academic works that use the term marital life course in their texts constituted a literature-dataset for a Concept Analysis (Walker & Avant, 1988; 2011) that tracked the theoretical development of the Marital Life Course Perspective since 1980 (George, 1980, p. 80). The residents of retirement centres and old age homes in East London and Buffalo City (all older than 65 years of age) were invited to share a retrospective history of their relationship experiences, about their multiple marital life events and the marital transitions that shaped their marital life course. The 16 women who participated in the in-depth interviews had all been previously married more than once and were currently single due to divorce or the death of their husbands. This empirical data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a guide (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). After the analysis and synthesis of both datasets the following proposed operational definition of the Marital Life Course Perspective was constructed: The Marital Life Course Perspective is a conceptual framework for describing and understanding marital life events and marital transitions. As a subset of the Life Course Perspective, the Marital Life Course Perspective seeks to understand all stages of the marital experience within their wider social and cultural contexts, which are shaped by the historical dimension of a cohort’s specific time and geographic location. Marital life events include, but are not limited to, marital status changes. An individual may experience multiple marriage life events throughout their life, each with associated role transitions that vary according to their temporality and the individuals whose lives are linked to the marital experience. Well-being and transition outcomes across the marital life course may be promoted or impeded by an interplay of risk and protective factors, and agency-related capacity or resilience.

Several studies indicate that married persons have higher levels of happiness that persons in other marital categories. In recent years, there has been some debate over whether marriage still involves significant advantages. In 1988, a study by Glenn and Weaver using U.S. national survey data, indicated that there had been a steady decline in the positive relationship between marriage and reported happiness from 1972 through 1986: married females were reporting lower levels of happiness and never-married males were reporting higher levels of happiness. More recent data presented in this thesis indicate that the trends in happiness observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) have not continued. New data from 1987 through 1996 show an increase in the happiness of both married males and females, and a slight decrease in the happiness of never-married males. Data also indicate that neither life satisfaction, or socioeconomic factors, or cohabitation can explain the relative increase in the happiness of the never-married, compared to the married, observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) from 1972 through 1986. Contrary to Glenn and Weaver (1988), evidence presented in this thesis suggests that marriage continues to be an important institution: married persons continue to have significantly higher levels of happiness than persons in other marital categories. Further, marriage provides persons with benefits that cannot be obtained from other living arrangements such as cohabitation. / Master of Science