Large Age Differences among Spouses and Their Family Constellations

Abstract

I t has been demonstrated (Toman, 1962) that enduring social relationships such as friendship or marriage tend to have better chances of happiness and success, other things being equal, the closer the partners duplicate for one another the sibling relationships of their original families. Thus, an oldest brother of sisters married to the youngest sister of brothers, o r a youngest brother of sisters married to the oldest sister of brothers, would tend to fare well with his partner. However, conflict would prevail in a marriage of an oldest brother of brothers to an older sister of sisters, or of a youngest brother of brothers to a youngest sister of sisters. Both partners would try in vain to lead the partner in the first case, to find leadership with the partner in the second case. The partners of both cases are not used to living together with a peer of the opposite sex. Other determinants (social status, wealth, physique, health, etc.) may interact with this trend. The present study explored the effect of the chronological age difference between spouses for determinants of sibling position. It was expected that marriage partners who had both been oldest siblings in their original families would tend to show rank conflicts with one another. However, one spouse's being older than the other might serve to micigate the conflict. A similar relationship would hold for partners each of whom had been the youngest sibling in his original family. Larger than usual age differences might help such partners get along. If this reasoning were correct, we would expect, among other things, to find a greater than usual relative frequency of rank conflict and, possibly, of sexual conflict, defined merely by compatibility of sibling positions between marital partners of very disparate ages. The large age difference may make it less necessary for the partners to choose optimally by the criterion of sibling position alone. Also, those persons choosing partners who would be incompatible by sibling position would tend to make up for it by choosing someone much older or younger. The family constellations of 1 8 couples with unusually large age differences (12 years or more) were studied. In 15 cases the husband was the older partner, in 3 the wife. In 4 and 1 cases, respectively ( 2 8 % ) , both partners duplicated for one another sibling relationships of their original families. Generally speaking, this would mean that a husband would have had at leasc one younger sister among his siblings if his wife has had at least one older brother among her siblings, o r that the husband would have at least one older sister among his siblings if his wife has had at least one younger brother among her siblings. These frequencies compare unfavorably with 63% of such duplication found among 54 average couples, i.e., parents of college students. In 8 and 1 respectively, of the original 18 cases ( 5 0 % ) , there was a complete rank conflict, as compared with an obtained frequency of 20% for the average couples. In 6 of these 9 cases the partners had rank and sex conflicts, which is high as compared with a 15% expected incidence of such conflict among average couples.