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Division
of Household
Chores Affects Marital Bliss
Excerpt
By Melissa Schorr, Reuters Health
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Spouses beware: shirking on household
duties and squabbling over money may be more harmful to the state
of marital bliss than your partner's disruptive ex-mate. According
to a Penn State sociologist, current marital concerns play a bigger
role in marital happiness than a spouse's romantic history.
``Husbands
and wives report lower marital quality when they view the division
of household labor and money as unfavorable to themselves,'' Juliana
McGene, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Pennsylvania State
University in State College, reported Tuesday at the American
Sociological Association's annual meeting in Anaheim, California.
McGene looked
at several factors that may affect martial happiness, including
each partner's relationship history and current marital conditions
such as religious attendance and sex life. She analyzed data from
860 couples who participated in the National Survey of Families
and Households taken from 1987 to 1988, and from 1992 to 1994.
Dissatisfaction
was measured by the couple's reported frequency of arguments,
consideration of divorce and thinking the marriage was in trouble.
McGene found
that current issues in a relationship were more likely to be factors
in marital discord than the issues related to a spouse's relationship
history, such as prior marriages or cohabitation.
For example,
spouses who perceived their partners as avoiding their share of
the chores or mishandling finances reported lower levels of satisfaction
with the marriage. Similarly, spouses, either male or female,
who worked long hours were also more likely to report less satisfaction
with their marriage.
On the flip
side, spouses who reported greater religious attendance each reported
greater marital satisfaction.
However, some
factors from prior relationships did factor into marital satisfaction.
For example, a current wife's dissatisfaction with the marriage
increased with the number of divorces in her husband's past. But
overall, it was the present, not the past, that caused most strife.
``The most
influential factors affecting marital satisfaction are weekly
hours of employment, the number of children living in the home,
religious attendance, and perceptions of unfairness about the
division of household labor and money,'' the investigator concluded.
``The combined effect of these (factors) counts for more than
the relationship history that each partner brings to the marriage,''
McGene added.
Reference
Source 89
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