A Methodological Note on Marital Satisfaction and Social Variables

Abstract

It has been suggested that the higher the divorce rate, the more likely that unhappy couples will terminate their marriages. The remaining population is said to have a higher mean, a negatively skewed distribution, and (because of a restricted range of scores) lower correlations between marriage satisfaction and other variables. Glenn and Weaver (1978) used this argument as an explanation for their failure to find marriage satisfaction to be correlated with much of anything in a large sample survey. Glenn and Weaver's view was tested in the present study by reanalyzing similar data from 1963, collected when divorce rates were said to be lower. It is shown that when type of sample, dependent measure, and method of analysis are held constant, the increased divorce rate is not an important factor in explaining marital satisfaction. In analyses like those of Glenn and Weaver, social and demographic correlates of marital satisfaction are virtually nil, in allegedly lower divorce populations and in higher.