Despite the attention given to the high divorce rate in this country, almost everyone gets married at some point in their lives. Many of the marriages last for a significant number of years.
     Do these lasting marriages change as the decades pass? Do husbands and wives in different generations regard marriage in the same way?
     Change in marriage was the topic of dissertation research by Elisabeth Burgess. Dr. Burgess, who is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta, worked on our study for four years before graduating last August.
     Although family scholars have explored marriages at different stages of life, little research has been done observing marriages over long periods of time. Your surveys provide a unique data source. Dr. Burgess used information on marital satisfaction from your surveys from 1971 to 1994 to explore the topic further.
     Previous research found that marital satisfaction declines during the childrearing years because parents are burdened by child care demands and have less time to focus on the marriage. Today as peopel are living longer and families are having fewer children, marriage is no longer just about raising children. Given the changing meaning of marriages, what stages of the marriages are most satisfying? Overall, Dr. Burgess found that most married individuals report in their surveys they are very satisfied with their marriages, but there are some differences as the years pass.
     First, married couples experience a honeymoon high. After the first few months of the marriage, couples gain a more realistic understanding of what is required to maintain a relationship. Marital satisfaction declines. Even without children, newly married couples experience a variety of stressors including work commitment and finanial burdens. The high expectations of newlywed couples are quickly dimmed by the realities of everyday life.
     Midlife brings a period of stability for most couples. Having survived the trials of a young marriage, marital satisfaction levels stabalize in the middle years of a marriage as children mature and pressures lessen. Some couples even find an increase in satisfaction in these years, rediscovering the joys of their relationship.
     For long-married couples, the last years of marriage are sometimes difficult. There is little research on marriages among those over age 65. In our survey, it appears that for many seniors marital satisfaction declines in the late years of marriage. Illness and financial pressure may mean new burdens, causing marital satisfaction to decline again.
     But what goes on at diffferent stages of a marriage is only part of the picture. The oldest generation in our survey were married in the 1920s when expectations for husbands and wives were very different than for their grandchildren marrying in the 1970s. When Dr. Burgess compared marital satisfaction rates of the different generations, she found that the older generation (the G1s) were more satisfied with their marriages than their children's generation. In turn, these G2s were more satisfied than their children, the G3s.
     Dr. Burgess does not appear to be too discouraged by these findings. After completing her dissertation, she got married!

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