The Relation of Child Age, Gender, and Number of Children to the Marital Adjustment of Wives

Abstract

This study compared the marital adjustment and emotional quality of the home environments of 210 employed wives in four family categories: mothers with infants, mothers with preschool-aged children, mothers with both infants and preschool children, and wives with no children. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Family Relations Index were administered to evaluate the effects of child age, gender, and number on the quality of wives' marriages. As in previous research, childless wives reported higher levels of marital adjustment and emotional quality of the home environment than the combined category of mothers when the responses of the mothers were pooled across all child groups. However, further analyses, using planned directional contrasts, revealed that the differences were primarily due to mothers with two children and mothers with male children. Mothers with female children reported no significant differences in marital adjustment and emotional quality of the home environment when compared with the childless wives. Results of this study suggest that decreased levels of marital quality may be specific to mothers with certain types of children.