Abstract
We are living nowadays in a social paradigm characterized by a high degree of fluidity. From professional career to leisure, from family patterns to neighborhood relationships, from cultural consumption to domestic technology, almost all the components of social reality have changed during recent decades. A given couple's experience is not insulated from these dynamics, or at least from the pressure that new trends constantly put on it. How can functional relationships be preserved in a continuously changing world? What possibilities are there for couples to sustain viable relationships in the face of all the waves of change, involving as they do new content, new rules, and, in many cases, new values? This paper sets out to analyze how the main factors related to marital life interact and what their impact is on individual satisfaction in the dyadic experience. To this end we planned and applied a sociological survey to a national sample (N = 455 participants, error limit 4.7) using a questionnaire focusing on an evaluation of dyadic life experience that included the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). The major finding is that more liberal sexual attitudes and people's high view of the importance of money are the strongest predictors of a low-quality dyadic experience. The patterns observed also raise the possibility that positive perception of the parental model may serve to compensate for a couple's relatively shorter period of marital experience.
Highlights
Marital satisfaction and its correlates have been investigated almost exclusively in Western countries [1]
We observe a complex effect from these two variables; a positive reported parental model is positively associated with perceived dyadic satisfaction, while duration of couple experience can have either type of consequence: positive or negative
Not even experience, as we have defined it, can be used as a direct predictor of dyadic satisfaction; this variable combines with the effects of the parental model, and we may suggest that people lacking experience are more likely to report having had positive parental models, and we may hypothesise that this evaluation contributes to their desired sense of marital satisfaction
Summary
Marital satisfaction and its correlates have been investigated almost exclusively in Western countries [1]. Marital relationships are strongly conditioned by culturally determined norms, customs, and expectations. Marital satisfaction refers to an individual’s global evaluation of the marital relationship [2]. Durodoye (1997) defined marital satisfaction as an individual’s subjective evaluation of the specific components within his/her marital relationship [3], while Fatehizadeh & Ahmadi found that marital satisfaction plays a major role in the stability of a marriage [4]. Garcia (1999) believes that satisfaction is to be considered at three levels: general satisfaction with life, satisfaction with family relationships, and satisfaction with one’s spouse [5].
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