The purpose of this study was to study marital turnarounds by focusing on the exploration of the reasons for couples remarrying each other. A comprehensive approach based on human ecology provided a framework for exploring the reasons for marital turnarounds ranging from micro to macro level factors. Data was collected through six semi-structured interviews, with two African marital turnaround couples from the Nelson Mandela Metropole. Data analysis was carried out systematically through a stepwise process. Data verification and trustworthiness was also performed. Five major themes emerged from the data analysis of the interviews as follows: Culture and religious influences, individual influences, personal growth, family influences and the influence of friends. Culture and religion emerged as powerful theme in shaping decisions about marital turnaround. An important sub-theme was that, in a culture that continues to value marriage as a permanent commitment, spouses internalised the social and religious norm of marriage as a permanent commitment.

The interplay between remarriage and fertility is among the most poorly documented subjects in sub-Saharan Africa, yet remarriage is one of the fundamental aspects of marriage dynamics in the region. Referring to classical demographic and statistical techniques, this research uses data collected since 1992 from Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys to establish the pattern and level of union dissolution and remarriage, and to assess the influence of remarriage on fertility preference and childbearing. The results reveal increasing stability of unions over time and a declining proportion of remarried women. The probability of experiencing first union dissolution within 15 years dropped from 45.9 to 40.0 per cent between 1992 and 2015, while the comparable likelihood of remarriage decreased from 36.1 to 27.7 per cent over the same interval duration. The effect of remarriage on the desire for more children is positive at advanced interval durations relative to the onset of first marriage. At shorter interval periods, where remarriage is relatively most recent, remarriage inhibits the desire for additional children. For example, in 2015, among women who first married 15-19 years before the survey, the odds of desiring another child were 4 per cent significantly higher among remarried women relative to their counterparts in intact unions. In contrast, for women who were married for 0-5 years, remarried women had 3 per cent lower olds of desiring another child. Furthermore, the childbearing pattern of remarried women is found to be distinct from that of women in intact unions. Remarried women give birth to more children sooner than their counterparts in intact unions, but eventually end up with fewer children. Indeed, the results show that in 2015, women in intact unions had 0.4 more children on average than their remarried counterparts. However, the difference in complete family size is steadily diminishing (difference of 1.5 in 2000), largely due to more marked fertility decline among women in intact unions. This trend, together with the long-term pattern of cumulated fertility differentials at younger reproductive ages, and current fertility disparities over the past two decades, strongly reveals that a new regime, where remarried women will end up with higher complete family size than those in intact unions, is emerging.

Remarriages have been increasing over the last several decades, yet little has been done in establishing theories and interventions specific to remarried couples and stepfamilies. Fine and Kurdek proposed a model specific to individuals in a remarriage situation. In an effort to validate their model, this study tested a key tenet, the tenet of consistency in cognitions, across spouses. Data were analyzed from the "Relationship Quality and Stability in Utah Newlywed Remarriages" study. With a sample of 449 couples, a series of correlations and backward regressions were completed. The results indicate that individual perceptions are more predictive of remarital quality than is consistency of cognitions. A critique of the Multidimensional Cognitive-Developmental Model is discussed. Limitations are addressed and recommendations for future research are given.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Widowhood and remarriage affected a majority of people in colonial Australia, yet historians have given them scant attention. Today, widowhood primarily concerns the elderly, but in the mid-nineteenth century a considerable proportion of deaths were amongst young adults. Thus many widows and widowers had children to care for, who were also affected by the loss of a parent and the possible remarriage of their surviving parent. Extended families might be called on for support, while communities, at the local and government level, were confronted with the need to provide welfare for the widowed and orphaned, including the older widowed. This thesis considers how widowhood impacted on men and women at all levels of society in the nineteenth-century Australian colonies, especially Western Australia and Victoria, taking into account the effects of age, class and numbers of children of the widowed. When men were the chief family earners and women were dependent child bearers the effects of widowhood could be disastrous, and widows had to employ a range of strategies to support themselves and their families. Men too were affected by widowhood, for the loss of a wife’s housekeeping skills could cause serious financial consequences. One response to widowhood was remarriage, and the thesis discusses the advantages and disadvantages of remarriage for men and women. Historians have regarded remarriage as the best option for the widowed, especially for women. Research into remarriage, especially in Britain and Europe, has focussed on demography. Assuming that all widowed wished to remarry, demographers have compared remarriage rates for men and women, within the context of the relative numbers of marriageable men and women in a given community.

Thesis (M.D.)--Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-110).

<p>The author discusses three Soviet comedies from the</p><p>1970s: Moskva slezam ne verit (Moscow Does Not Believe</p><p>in Tears, Vladimir Menshov, 1979), Osenniy marafon</p><p>(Autumn Marathon, Georgi Daneliya, 1979), and Ironiya</p><p>Sudby, ili S lyogkim parom (Irony of Fate, Eldar</p><p>Ryazanov, 1975), and how they relate to both</p><p>conventions of romance and conventions of the</p><p>mainstream traditions of the romantic comedy genre.</p><p>The text explores the evolution of the genre and</p><p>accompanying theoretic writings, and relates them to</p><p>the Soviet films, focusing largely on the conventions</p><p>that can be grouped under an idea of the romantic</p><p>chronotope. The discussion includes the conventions of</p><p>chance and fate, of the wrong partner, the happy</p><p>ending, the temporary and carnevalesque nature of</p><p>romance, multiple levels of discourse, and some</p><p>aspects of gender, class and power. In addition, some</p><p>attention is paid to the ways in which the films</p><p>connect to specific genre cycles, such as screwball</p><p>comedy and comedy of remarriage, and to the</p><p>implications that a communist system may have on the</p><p>possibilities of love and romance. The author argues</p><p>that Soviet and Hollywood films share many conventions</p><p>of romance, but for differing reasons.</p>

This thesis addresses to what extent childhood family composition – the number of siblings and whether the parents live together, or whether there are non-parental adults and/or half-siblings in the household or not – contributes to variations in adult earnings. The theoretical perspective suggests that resources mediate the effect. While research has shown that siblings, as well as divorce and remarriage, are negatively linked to child outcomes, there are inconsistencies in previous literature. There has been debate over the unconfoundedness of previous studies, something that is handled here by analyzing large sets of representative data using a robust parameter. The longitudinal dataset used is based on Swedish administrative data and the cohorts analyzed are born in the beginning of the 1970s. The data structure is well suited for the assumptions underlying the semi-parametric method propensity score matching. The findings show that family size impacts on adult earnings. However, this is not always of concern. For example, no effect of siblings is found in affluent families, and if siblings are closely spaced this results in better outcomes for children. Divorce and remarriage do not seem to lower the future earnings of children. Thus, this thesis shows that some of the most well-established patterns in the sociology of the family, namely the link between number of siblings and adult earnings, and between divorce/family re-formation and adult earnings, can be broken by resources.

Thesis advisor: Donald Cox / <bold>Chapter 1 - Intergenerational Transfer Inflows to Adult Children of Divorce <bold> Do adult children of divorce receive less money from their parents than children of intact unions? Are they less likely to receive parental help for buying a house, starting a business or weathering a financial crisis? Though there is evidence that an individual divorced parent gives less to his child than he would give if he were married to his child's other parent, no study has examined the transfers given by both divorced parents. I approach the question of transfers to adult children of divorce from a fresh angle by asking not, "How much did the parent give?" but instead, "How much did the child get?" I also examine the correlation between parents' remarriage and transfers received. Using data from the 1988 wave of the PSID, I find that parental divorce and remarriage are uncorrelated with the incidence of a transfer. Within the select group of children who receive a transfer, however, divorce is correlated with an increased transfer amount, while a father's remarriage is correlated with a decreased amount. <bold> Chapter 2 - The Correlation Between Subjective Parental Longevity and Intergenerational Transfers <bold> Are parental financial transfers to adult children correlated with subjective parental longevity? Despite rapid and continuing increases in life expectancy, no previous study has looked at transfers in relation to parents' opinions of how long they will live. This paper uses the subjective survival probability data included in the Health and Retirement Study to examine this potential correlation for a select group of unmarried older parents. For mothers only, I consistently find modest positive correlations between subjective longevity and anticipated future inter vivos transfers and bequests. For fathers, I find a non-linear relationship between subjective longevity and anticipated future inter vivos transfers. I discuss the potential reasons for these descriptive results and some further questions that arise from them. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

This dissertation consists of two articles. The first reviews research on repartnering by bereaved partners with recommendations for practitioners. Potential repartnering challenges, such as comparing relationships between the new and deceased partner, feelings of guilt about entering a new relationship, and lower intimacy and engagement in the new relationship are discussed, in addition to other factors that affect repartnering, such as age, gender, the types of death, and the presence of children. The second article examines repartnering among older bereaved partners. Data from two waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) were analyzed for bereaved partners who had experienced the death of a partner at wave 1 and who were (N = 46) or were not (N = 372) repartnered at wave 2. Specifically, analyses examined whether a) loneliness, depression, happiness, and non-partner social support (NPSS) at wave 1 (T1) affect repartnering at wave 2 (T2), b) whether repartnering is uniquely associated with time 2 loneliness, depression, and happiness, and for those bereaved partners who repartnered, c) depression, loneliness, and happiness will relate to the quality of the new relationship. Results found that a) only younger age and identifying as male were negative associated with having repartnered, b) NPSS at T2 was uniquely associated with depression, loneliness, and happiness, but repartnered status was not, c) T2 NPSS was associated with quality of the new relationship, but loneliness, depression, and happiness were not, and d) being a repartnered female was associated with lower depression when T2NPSS was high. Overall, non-partner social support appears to be a more important factor in psychological well-being than repartnering among older bereaved partners, despite some repartnering challenges.