Successful Marriage Research Articles

Anna Karenina, Rousseau, and the Gospels

A he richness and ambiguity of Anna Karenina arises from the conflict between its sym pathy with both the adulteress and the family. In his novel Tolstoy at once empathizes with Anna and reaffirms the biblical understanding of adultery as sinful, while including a vi sion of family that could prevent it. Tolstoy's antidote to the decadence he found in the French novel of adultery is made up of the ideals of Rousseau and the eternal authority of the Gospels; he needed both to answer the question that increasingly tormented him as he was writing Anna Karenina?the meaning of life, and how to live. Tolstoy sets this conflict into dialogue against the background of a variety of literary, philosophical, and sacred texts; he builds his response by recasting the most minute details of each work in such a way that the novel both forgives Anna and enshrines the holy ideal of the family. Since Les Liaisons Dangeureuses first appeared, adultery has been a particularly French theme. To portray an adulteress Tolstoy, who followed French prose closely throughout his life, drew from Rousseau as well as from French works published during the twenty years preceding his writing Anna Karenina. Tolstoy's novel of adultery in the European style became a philosophico-moral one as he set the relationship among Karenin, Anna, and Vronsky into dialogue with the ideas of a range of French novels.1 Tolstoy's counterexample to the adulterous triangle, the story of the successful marriage of Kitty and Levin, explicitly contradicts the French models and uses the Gospels to suggest the mysteries of the sacra ment of marriage. Leo Tolstoy, 1880s

Church Attendance and Marital Commitment Beliefs of Undergraduate Women

Marital commitment between spouses has been found to be an important predictor of successful marriages. Beliefs about marital commitment among never‐married young adults are of interest because of their probable influence on subsequent marital behaviors. The current study examined social‐cognitive processes; specifically, religiousness, locus‐of‐control beliefs, and gender role attitudes, in the prediction of marital commitment beliefs among 294 undergraduate never‐married women. We found that higher religiousness and lower chance locus of control were significantly correlated with stronger marital commitment beliefs. Multiple regression analyses revealed that religiousness was the best predictor of marital commitment beliefs in this sample. Social learning processes are implicated in the development of marital commitment beliefs. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

RNAi and Gene Therapy: A Mutual Attraction

The phylogenetically conserved cellular phenomenon of RNA interference (RNAi)-the sequence-specific post-transcriptional silencing of gene expression mediated by small double-stranded RNAs-holds substantial promise for basic research and for drug development. Particularly attractive from a medical standpoint is the juxtaposition of new RNAi methodology with established gene transfer strategies, especially viral vectors for efficient and tissue-specific RNAi delivery to patients. Here, we summarize the latest experimental and clinical advances in RNAi-based gene therapy approaches. We briefly portray emerging nonviral strategies for siRNA transfer, before comparing the three viral vectors currently predominantly developed as shRNA delivery vehicles, adenovirus, lentivirus, and adeno-associated virus (AAV). Moreover, we describe the most clinically relevant genetic, acquired or infectious targets being pursued for therapeutic purposes. Specifically, we assess the use of vector-mediated RNAi for treatment of viral processes, solid cancers, lymphoproliferative disorders, and neurodegenerative and ocular diseases. In addition, we highlight further emerging applications, including stem cell therapies and animal transgenesis, as well as discuss some of the potential pitfalls and limitations inherent to the individual approaches. While we predict that eventual schemes will be shaped by our increasing understanding of the complexities of human RNAi biology, as well as by progressive refinements of viral shuttle designs, the potential scientific and medical benefits from a successful marriage of RNAi and gene therapy seem enormous.

Romantic Love, Sex and Marriage Lithuania Style

Recent cross-cultural studies indicate that sexual permissiveness is culturally accepted, endorsed and practised in the Baltic states. Flaws in these studies are pointed out and a more extensive multi-method approach is used to examine Lithuanian conceptions and practices of romantic love and to propose a cultural model of romantic love. It is shown that young adult Lithuanians tend to view romantic love as an initial and temporary “dreaming” stage in a love relation. This stage is differentiated from ordinary life and is very “poetic” but ends either in separation or in a transformation into “real” or “true” love. Romantic love, as a temporary and poetic form of love, is typically practised during the period when males and females are pursuing career goals. Thus, young adult Lithuanians may adopt values of sexual-romantic permissiveness during this time. Once they are established on a career path they are more likely to attend to the business of marriage. “True” rather than “romantic” love then becomes the criterion for a successful marriage.

Should we write prenuptial contracts?

A successful marriage requires for both parties to make investments in their relationship and marital assets. How such assets would be divided if and when the parties divorce is an important factor determining each party's ex ante investment incentives. Using the incomplete contracting approach, we characterize the optimal asset division rule, one that provides the parties with the best investment incentives. We then discuss the circumstances under which the spouses would agree, in equilibrium, to contract out state-imposed rules governing the allocation of marital assets upon divorce. We conclude by exploring the implications of our results in the context of various asset division rules currently discussed by policy-makers.

Grid: On Being-as-Transmission and Normativity

Grid: On Being-as-Transmission and Normativity

The interaction of technology in entrepreneurial marketing: an illustrative case from a wine merchant

Abstract Entrepreneurial organizations frequently have difficulty in standing back from the customer interface in order to plan strategically. Managers in such organizations are rarely strategists in the conventional sense but people performing many tasks and preoccupied with the short term and guided by principles of their founders. There are suggestions that management in small entrepreneurial companies is characterized by limited resources and lack of specialist expertise. The use of technology in marketing for small firms is often fraught with difficulties but the successful marriage of marketing and technology can lead to the development of a more successful business. The development and evolution of technology has provided small firm retailers with opportunities to widen and enhance their distribution and communication methods by developing interactive channels. Many small firms limit themselves by the way in which they collect data, which requires forward thinking as to the real purpose and value of it and often there is a tendency to under‐utilize the data in order to get meaningful marketing information from it. Understanding and using technology, whether it be data mining or for some other marketing purpose, presents an entrepreneurial organization with an opportunity for differentiation. This paper focuses on one small business engaged in using technology in the marketing of wine. A principal theme here is to highlight those activities found lacking in a specific case study. A framework is developed which demonstrates the interaction of technology in marketing and incorporates both operational and conceptual elements. The findings illustrate the challenges faced by small organizations with limited resources which are trying to compete in a crowded retail market place. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Heterocyclic Synthesis and Therapeutic Chemistry: A Successful Marriage

AbstractFor Abstract see ChemInform Abstract in Full Text.

Electronic Structure Study of Seven-Coordinate First-Row Transition Metal Complexes Derived from 1,10-Diaza-15-crown-5: A Successful Marriage of Theory with Experiment

A detailed study of the electronic structure of seven-coordinate Mn(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) complexes with the lariat ether N,N'-bis(2-aminobenzyl)-1,10-diaza-15-crown-5 (L(1)) is presented. These complexes represent new examples of structurally characterized seven-coordinate (pentagonal bipyramidal) complexes for the Mn(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) ions. The X-ray crystal structures of the Mn(II) and Co(II) complexes show C(2) symmetries for the [M(L(1))](2+) cations, whereas the structures of the Ni(II) complexes show a more distorted coordination environment. The magnetic properties of the Mn(II) complex display a characteristic Curie law, whereas those of the Co(II) and Ni(II) ions show the occurrence of zero-field splitting of the S = 3/2 and 1 ground states, respectively. Geometry optimizations of the [M(L(1))](2+) systems (M = Mn, Co, or Ni) at the DFT (B3LYP) level of theory provide theoretical structures in good agreement with the experimental data. Electronic structure calculations predict a similar ordering of the metal-based beta spin frontier MO for the Mn(II) and Co(II) complexes. This particular ordering of the frontier MO leads to a pseudodegenerate ground state for the d(8) Ni(II) ion. The distortion of the C(2) symmetry in [Ni(L(1))](2+) is consistent with a Jahn-Teller effect that removes this pseudodegeneracy. Our electronic structure calculations predict that the binding strength of L(1) should follow the trend Co(II) approximately Mn(II) > Ni(II), in agreement with experimental data obtained from spectrophotometric titrations.

The Relationship, If Any, Between Marriage and Infidelity

SUMMARY Infidelity has been hypothesized to be caused by any number of factors, including unhappy marriages. The current article explores the myths about infidelity and its treatment. Advice is offered to those treating affairs, and to those interested in successful marriages.

What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce

JUDITH S. WALLERSTEIN AND SANDRA BLAKESLEE: What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce. New York: Hyperion, 2003, 400 pp., $23.95, ISBN 0786868651 For more than thirty years, Judith S. Wallerstein, Ph.D., has studied the impact of divorce on families. As founder and executive director of the Center for the Family in Transition, she has conducted extensive follow-up work with parents, children, and adolescents affected by divorce as they have continued throughout life in the post-divorce phase. Her method has focused on the personal interview: a faith in the power of individual stories. Students of divorce know her groundbreaking work from her previous books, second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade after Divorce (with Sandra Blakeslee, a science writer and her co-author here); The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study (with Blakeslee and Julia M. Lewis); and Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce (with Joan Berlin Kelly). She also has written, with Blakeslee, The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts, a fascinating exploration of successful marriage. Written in the second person, What About the Kids? addresses parents specifically. This book, unique in its perspective, focuses on the psychological impact of divorce on children and adolescents. It offers to parents invaluable, practical information and specific recommendations. Wallerstein and Blakeslee note that divorcing or divorced parents have greater responsibilities for raising their children, while they have far less control individually. Further, one parent is never completely free from the other-a point that cannot be overemphasized to spouses who are contemplating divorce. One of the most important hurdles for parents is their discussion with their children prior to any actual separation. Children younger than five may need only a day or so of preparation. Adolescents, who often sense what is happening, may need a few weeks. Years later, children of divorce often are able to remember every word of these conversations. The authors caution against what they call the real estate approach to divorce, where parents focus exclusively on changes in the child's living arrangements. Parents should take nothing for granted in a child's understanding of the meaning of divorce. Obviously, age, developmental level, gender, and temperament will influence this understanding. The book explores specific responses and concerns of children at different ages. For example, very young children are often preoccupied with separation-if one parent can leave, why not both? Of note, half of all divorces occur in families with children under age six. Older children, who have a better understanding of cause and effect, may have the capacity to deny what they have seen and may be preoccupied with anger and righteous indignation. They may also be subject to symptoms of regression, such as bedwetting and thumb-sucking, and have difficulties with school performance. …

Transformations in China's population policies and demographic structure

Abstract. We use data from a 1992 national fertility survey to analyze China's changing demographic patterns between 1970 and 1989, covering marriage, childbearing, fertility and the gender composition of children. The analysis focuses on the relationship between population control policies and the behavior of successive marriage cohorts. Adopting a regression approach, we characterize a set of stylized demographic features in China over the two decades, including new results on women's average age at first marriage and first births, number of children per couple, and sex ratios among children. China's changing demographic patterns differed significantly among urban, township and rural populations.

Evaluation of the connections: Relationships and marriage curriculum*

Connections: Relationships and Marriage is a high school marriage education curriculum designed to teach students how to develop healthy relationships and marriages. This study evaluated the effectiveness of this curriculum with 410 high school students who were in Connections or a control group. Although the effects were relatively small, findings suggest that the curriculum increases knowledge of relationship concepts, decreases violence in dating relationships, decreases risk factors for adolescent pregnancy, and positively impacts attitudes related to future successful marriage. Implications for further development of the curriculum and other implications for practitioners are discussed.

Initial Information and Successful Marriage: Evidence in China

Using a unique survey of 10,000 Chinese couples in 1991, this paper evaluates the impact of marriage market on life quality after marriage. Specifically, we compare three matchmaking means - self match, parental involvement, and friend introduction - and associate them with the degree of marriage harmony and joint couple income after marriage. We consider the agency cost of parent involvement and friend introduction, the market expansion effect of parents/friends matchmaking, and the self-selection effect driven by omitted individual attributes. In a number of specifications, we find that self-matched couples have the fewest domestic conflicts and the highest income. This result holds even after isolating the self-selection effect. Evidence suggests that the agency costs associated with friends or parents exceed the potential market expansion effect; the costs show up in compromised domestic harmony for parent-involved marriages, and reduced earning for friends-introduced marriages.

Selective imidazoline agonist moxonidine plus the ACE inhibitor ramipril in hypertensive patients with impaired insulin sensitivity: partners in a successful MARRIAGE?

Hypertension in combination with clinically overt diabetes mellitus is recognized as a particularly powerful combination of risk factors that greatly increases cardiovascular vulnerability. There is also evidence that presumed pre-diabetic conditions such as insulin resistance, hyperinsulinaemia and compensatory hyperglycaemia may amplify overall cardiovascular risk in patients with hypertension, especially when encountered as part of the condition known as metabolic syndrome X (Reaven's syndrome).The long-term benefits of antihypertensive therapy may be compromised if these drugs exert adverse effects on metabolic parameters such as insulin sensitivity, or if they promote a transition from pre-diabetes to overt diabetes. Class differences in the effects of antihypertensives on metabolic indices may therefore be an important consideration when choosing treatment for patients who exhibit these characteristics.Experience from clinical trials suggests that drugs that target the renin-angiotensin system may have metabolic advantages over drugs such as beta-blockers and diuretics, but this conclusion has not been proved definitively.Moxonidine, which selectively targets imidazoline type-1 receptors in the sympathetic vasomotor centres of the rostral-ventrolateral medulla, is an effective antihypertensive and has been reported to exert favourable metabolic effects in preclinical and clinical studies. The MARRIAGE study (Moxonidine And Ramipril Regarding Insulin And Glucose Evaluation) will extend these preliminary observations by comparing the effects of moxonidine and the ACE inhibitor ramipril - and the combination of both drugs - on metabolic and haemodynamic parameters in patients with hypertension and impaired fasting glycaemia. A description is provided of the design and conduct of MARRIAGE.

Predictors and characteristics of Erikson's life cycle model among men: a 32-year longitudinal study.

To assess Erikson's life cycle model, 86 men, initially selected for health, were prospectively studied at age 21, and reassessed 32 years later at age 53. Using the Vaillant and Milofsky (1980) modification of Erikson's model, 48 men (56%) achieved generativity, an advanced developmental stage, at follow-up. Results generally support Erikson's model and show that generativity was significantly associated with successful marriage, work achievements, close friendships, altruistic behaviors, and overall mental health. Successful young adult predictors of Erikson's model at midlife included a warm family environment, an absence of troubled parental discipline, a mentor relationship, and, most importantly, favorable peer group relationships. Significant predictors of Erikson's model were of moderate effect size and involve young adult social relationships rather than physical symptoms or parental social class standing.

Accomplishments and challenges in bioinformatics

A new IT discipline - bioinformatics - fuses computing, mathematics and biology to meet the many computational challenges in modern molecular biology and medical research. The two major themes in bioinformatics - data management and knowledge discovery - rely on effectively adopting techniques developed in IT for biological data, with IT scientists playing an essential role. The future of molecular biology and biomedicine will greatly depend on advances in informatics. As we review researchers' many achievements in bioinformatics, we're confident that the marriage between molecular biology and information technology is a happy one. Accomplishments in bioinformatics have advanced molecular biology and information technology. Although many computational challenges lie ahead, more fruitful outcomes of this successful multidisciplinary marriage are likely.

L'affaire Skobeev (mai 1722) ou De la chancellerie secrète comme source d'inspiration d'une nouvelle russe ?

The 'Skobeev Case' (May 1722): or the Secret Chancery as a Possible Source of the History of Frol Skobeev While a majority of specialists holds that the Russian novel Povesť о Frôle Skobeeve dates from the late 17 C, a few influent scholars consider it nevertheless as a typical example of 'Petrine' tale, which could have been written between 1710 and 1722. This latter opinion may find some support in additional facts provided by the details of a minor case of lese-majesty investigated by Peter the Great's Secret Chancery in 1722. A gentleman of very small fortune from the district of Borovsk, one Timofej Skobeev, living on his estate of Frolovskoe, was reported by his servant to have, in a state of intoxication, used slanderous language with respect to the Tsar in the course of a domestic quarrel, which took place shortly before Christmas 1721. Skobeev confessed to the facts and received a sentence of drubbing, while his slave servant was rewarded with emancipation for reporting the crime. The Skobeev case went no further, but there are suggestions that it may have inspired one of the Chancery clerks with the idea of the well-known novel, where the hero, also called Skobeev, was christened Frol and endowed with an estate not much better than that of the gentleman from the Borovsk district. The story is that of the successful marriage, which he manages to conclude by taking advantage both of the candour of the bride-to-be and of the greed and the drunkenness of her father's servants. Together with these similarities of names and situations, it is to be noted that the language used in the novel meets most of the standards of the so-called 'Chancery style' (prikaznoj jazyk) then in use. The article contains an unabridged publication of the inquiry conducted in the Timofei Skobeev case and a study of the parallels to be drawn between these facts and the Povesť o Frôle Skobeeve.

Science, technology and governance beyond complacency: the road ahead

"Science and governance" refers to the mechanisms, and the challenge of devising them, allowing science and decision making in society to work together in ways that are effective, credible, accountable and transparent. The importance of a successful marriage of science and governance is manifold. On the one hand Science/Technology (S/T) is substantially responsible for driving change. Moreover, S/T can help clarify the terms of the debate, the stakes and the repercussions of alternatives considered. By informing debate and the eventual policy choices, S/T helps both governance and itself. Governance and the policy choices made are legitimated in an S/T-informed process so as to become more than the arbitrary selection resulting from power struggles, untamed by facts and cool-headed analysis. On the other hand, S/T escapes both the splendid isolation of the proverbial academic ivory tower, and the crippling image of a hired gun.

“Why is Marriage So Difficult?”: A Psychoanalyst's Perspective

A psychoanalytic experience with Herb Strean is described as facilitating the author's personal evolution of competencies required for a successful marriage. Rather than focusing on the familiar difficulties that often beset marriage, eight core competencies (capacity for commitment, emotional maturity, tolerance for imperfections, unconscious wisdom, mature dependence, capacity for oedipal success, capacity to face existential realities, and capacity for humor and playfulness) are delineated. Many people develop these competencies from fortunate internalizations of effectively loving parental couples. Others are able to do this via supplemental mentoring experiences. The author's mentoring was received during the course of two psychoanalyses with Herb Strean.