First phase of marriage.

Abstract

Married life may be divided into phases with different tasks, responsibilities, roles, and goals; each phase has factors that induce major difficulties. One of the best known ways of dividing up married life is the Duvall eight-stage life cycle,1 based on the age of the children: stage I, no children: stage 2, the birth of the oldest to 30 months; stage 3, 30 months to 6 years; stage 4, families with schoolchildren, oldest child 6-13 years; stage 5, oldest child 13-20 years; stage 6, families largely young adults ; stage 7, middle-aged parents (empty nest to retirement); stage 8, retirement to death of both spouses. A shorter classification has been proposed,2 in which the cycle is divided into three phases, and each phase composed of five factors: social, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Phase I lasts from the mean age at marriage?which in 1976 was 25 T for men and 22-8 for women3?until 30. The maximum mean number of children for any group of women born this century is 2-4 and these are usually born by the time the woman is 30; hence this phase, which represents about the first five years of marriage, covers the years before and during the arrival of children. A second phase covers the years between 30 and 50, when the children are growing up and leaving home, and a third phase from 50 until the death of one spouse. The life of an American woman is similar to that of a British woman. She marries at about 21, has her first baby about two years later, and her last child before she is 30. Her last child marries before she is 50, and she then has about 17 years with her husband before his death.1 The husband reaches all these milestones two to three years later.