Marital Satisfaction over the Family Life Cycle: A Critique and Proposal

This paper examines the research which has explored the relationship between marital satisfaction and thefamily life cycle. It critically evaluates the research designs and assesses the methodological weaknesses which resulted in findings which are inconclusive, inconsistent, and ambiguous. The most convincing finding is represented as a curvilinear model. Varying interpretations of this model are presented herein. An alternative methodology is proposed which attempts to solve the problems exposed in past research efforts and which could be reconciled with reformulations of the developmental perspective which will take into account cultural changes.