What Does Marriage Mean to Us? Marital Centrality among Newlywed Couples

With marriage now delayed until later in the life course, developmental and young adult scholars have increasingly focused on how relational and marital beliefs of unmarried young adults influence developmental and relational trajectories. Yet little research has explored how these same perceptions and beliefs may alter adult relationships and marriages. Using a national U.S. sample of 1,755 newlywed couples, we explored how beliefs about the centrality of marriage were associated with marital quality and commitment. A common-fate approach that simultaneously allowed for both individual and couple-level analyses was used. Results suggested that higher marital centrality beliefs separately for each partner and jointly as a couple were strongly associated with higher interpersonal commitment to one’s spouse and the general level of commitment in the relationship. Significant indirect effects found for husbands, wives, and at the couple-level suggested that higher marital centrality beliefs had an indirect association through commitment with higher relationship satisfaction, less instability, and higher reports of positive communication. Marital beliefs around the centrality of marriage appear to be strongly connected to the establishment of commitment and relationship quality among married couples. Results call for the expansion of the marital and relational belief literature into the context of adult relationships.

Fait tendencies regarding disability problems within the families

Parents of children with special needs have many duties when compared to parents of children with typical development and they face with many hardships in every stages of their lives. Parents cannot cope with hardships easily and they can fray out from emotional dimensions. This study carried out based on the idea that problems and hardships experienced by the parents of children with special needs make them to head for religion. It was aimed to determine the religious tendencies of parents of children with special needs in this research. Participants of the study consisted of 68 parents of children with special needs and ‘Religious Tendency Scale’ was administered to the parents. The results of the study showed that parents were undecided on general religious tendency, internal and external religious tendency. Keywords: Family, perception, religious, relational belief, special needs children.