Prelims

Half Title Page

Conjugal Trajectories

Series Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Series Editor: Sampson Lee Blair

Recent Volumes:

Editorial Board

• Anja-Kristin Abendroth

  Bielefeld University, Germany

• Clarence M. Batan

  University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

• Eli Buchbinder

  University of Haifa, Israel

• Yu-Hua Chen

  National Taiwan University, Taiwan

• Patricia Neff Claster

  Edinboro University, USA

• Teresa M. Cooney

  University of Colorado-Denver, USA

• Rosalina Pisco Costa

  University of Évora, Portugal

• Alda Britto da Motta

  Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

• Olufemi Adeniyi Fawole

  University of Ilorin, Nigeria

• Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández

  University of Colima, Mexico

• Man-Yee Kan

  University of Oxford, United Kingdom

• Timothy J. Madigan

  Mansfield University, USA

• Marion Müller

  University of Tuebingen, Germany

• Josip Obradović

  University of Zagreb, Croatia

• Christina L. Scott

  Whittier College, USA

• Ria Smit

  University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• Heidi Williams

  Virginia Tech, USA

Title Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH - VOLUME 22

Conjugal Trajectories: Relationship Beginnings, Change, and Dissolutions

Edited By

Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández

University of Colima, Mexico

And

Sampson Lee Blair

The State University of New York, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2023

Editorial matter and selection © 2023 Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández and Sampson Lee Blair.

Published under exclusive licence.

Individual chapters © 2023 Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80455-395-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-394-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-396-1 (Epub)

ISSN: 1530-3535 (Series)

Contents

About the Authors

Olukemi K. Amodu is a Professor of Genetics/Molecular Biology and Public Health at the Institute of Child Health, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is engaged in building platforms for developing capacity in biotechnology, leveraging on her core expertise in molecular genetics with a focus on bringing together clinical and biomedical scientists for public health research. Her research interests also include Public Health impact research, bringing health services closer to the population by providing innovative strategies for increasing vaccination demand for working mothers in Ibadan metropolis Nigeria.

Kay Bradford is a Professor at Utah State University. His research focuses on relationship education for youth, adult singles, couples, and fathers. His funded projects include interventions in community and high-risk contexts.

Micaela A. Chavarin will receive her B.A. in Psychology from Whittier College in spring of 2023. She is currently working under the advisement of Dr Christina L. Scott as a Research Assistant and Teaching Assistant for Research Methods. She looks forward to obtaining her Master’s and PhD in Psychology in order to pursue a career in veteran’s affairs.

Javiera Cienfuegos-Illanes is an Associate Professor at Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano (Chile) and obtained her PhD in Sociology at Freie Universität Berlin. Her main research areas include family diversity, transnational migration, and social emotions, which converge on the phenomenon of transnational families, an issue which has worked intensively since 2007. Her dissertation was awarded the triannual prize Friedrich Katz by the Latin American Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In addition, this work has been published as a book by RIL Publishing House. Between 2019 and 2021, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Latin American Institute in the Freie Universität Berlin, conducting research on family processes and labor trajectories of high-skilled migrants, including the countries of Germany and Chile. Her work is available in three different languages: book chapters and double-blind peer-reviewed articles. Recently, she has been editor and co-editor of three books, Special Issues. Her last editorial project is the Handbook of Transnational Families (2022, Springer), co-edited with Rosa Brandhorst and Deborah Bryceson. She lectured sociology of migration and emotions, qualitative and mixed social research methods. Furthermore, she promotes family diversity through an academic and community visual project called “Familia Glocal” the main objective is to render visible, rescuing quotidian experiences and issues the variety of forms of “doing family.”

Mira Čudina – Nationality: Croatian. Education: elementary and high school finished in Zagreb, Croatia. Graduated Psychology, Filozofski fakultet, University of Zagreb, Ph.D. in Psychology, Filozofski fakultet, University of Zagreb. Employment: Teachers’ College, University of Zagreb, Croatia; part-time employment at Croatian Studies and Catholic University, Zagreb, Croatia. Teaching interests and Experience: The main interest: applying research in various fields of Psychology to offer students modern knowledge of teaching/learning processes and methods (courses in Developmental and Teaching Psychology, Emotions, Motivation, Teaching Gifted children, and Psychology of reading), for undergraduate and graduate students. Membership in Organizations: Croatian Psychological Organization. Participation in professional meetings: Actively participated in more than 25 domestic and six international meetings. Publications: Published six books as co-author, five books as the only author, and more than 40 research papers in Croatian and English language.

Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández is a Professor in the Faculty of Literature and Mass Media at the University of Colima. She earned her PhD in Sociology at Essex University. Her research interests include family diversity, gender and emotions and their intersections with intimacy, identity, and sociocultural change. Currently, she is researching on Intimacy and conjugal trajectories from an intergenerational perspective. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge and has taught family courses in Mexican, Colombian and Brazilian universities. She is the Journal Editor of GenEroos.

Shichao Du is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department at the State University of New York, Albany. His research interests fall in families, social networks, health, and culture. His dissertation examines parental intervention in their children’s marital decisions in China as well as the marital consequences of such intervention. His work appears in The China Quarterly, Marriage & Family Review, and IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Information.

Karen Benjamin Guzzo is a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves as the Director of the Carolina Population Center. She is a Family Sociologist and Demographer whose work considers trends, patterns, and variation in childbearing and union formation/stability using survey data. Dr Guzzo is an expert on trends and differentials in US fertility preferences and fertility behaviors, such as delayed childbearing and childlessness, fertility intentions, nonmarital fertility, and childbearing across partnerships. Her work takes a reproductive career approach, which grounds childbearing and family behaviors both in the larger life course and in relation to individuals’ past and future childbearing and family goals and behaviors. Dr Guzzo’s research has been federally funded and appeared in top family and demography journals, including Demography, Journal of Mariage and Family, Population and Development Review, and Journal of Family Issues.

Brian J. Higginbotham is a Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Utah State University. He has a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Auburn University.

Aaron Hoy, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His research and teaching interests include families, sexualities, sex/gender, and qualitative methods. In particular, his research examines how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people experience and make sense of marriage and divorce following the legalization of same-sex marriage. His research has been published or is forthcoming in a range of sociology and interdisciplinary journals, including the Journal of Family Issues, Sociology Compass, and Journal of Homosexuality. He is also the Editor of The Social Science of Same-Sex Marriage: LGBT People and Their Relationships in the Era of Marriage Equality (Routledge, 2022). He completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at Syracuse University in 2018.

Bui Thu Huong attained her Doctoral degree in La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia in 2015. She is now working as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Development Studies, Academy of Journalism and Communication. She is interested and has experiences teaching and researching into issues relating to gender, health and communication. She used to work for a UNFPA-sponsored population and development advocacy project in the Academy of Journalism and Communication as an administrative assistant. In this position, she had the best opportunity to learn a lot about population-development, gender issues, reproductive and sexual health, communication and so on through the project’s research activities and material development. It was here that her interest in these issues was initially kindled. She did not only embrace them in her own project at Master and Doctoral levels but also she continues to pursue these interests through her teaching responsibilities at the moment, specifically seven modules, Introductory Sociology, Research Methods, Research Design, Introduction to Counseling, Advocacy of Social Issues, Cultural Sociology and Culture and Globalisation. In addition, she has played an active role in numerous other inquiries undertaken by the Department. They include, among others, Exploring Students’ Needs of Education of Sexuality, Representation of Homosexuality in Newspapers, Gender Messages in Job Advertisement, Gender-based Violence, Sex ratio at birth in Vietnam, Women’s Economic Contribution through their Unpaid Work and National Study on Health and Family in Vietnam.

Olena Kopystynska is an Assistant Professor at Southern Utah University. She received her Ph.D. in Family Studies and Human Development from the University of Arizona and completed her post-doctoral training at Utah State University. Her research interests focus on examining the role of interparental conflict in relation to parenting and the quality of coparental relationships across different family structures (e.g., married parents, cohabiting parents, and stepfamilies).

Antoinette M. Landor is an Associate Professor and Millsap Professor of Diversity and Multicultural Studies in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on the impact of colorism and racism on individual, relational, and family health and functioning. She also examines how sociocultural factors influence the sexual and romantic relationship behaviors of adolescents and young adults.

Nguyen Huu Minh is a High Senior Researcher of the Institute for Family and Gender Studies (IFGS), Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) and is a Professor of Sociology, Vietnam Graduate Academy of Social Sciences (GASS). Currently, he is the President of Vietnam Sociological Association (VSA, 2017–2022 term). He received his Ph.D in Sociology in 1998 from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He is a Former Director of the IFGS (2005–2017), Former Vice-Director of the Institute of Sociology (1999–2005). In addition to teach for graduate program in GASS he has given lectures for graduate program in Sociology and Social Work in Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics; University of Social Sciences and Humanities at Ho Chi Minh city; Journalism Academy, Thu Dau Mot University, and some other Universities. He has been a PI or Co-PI of many international and national research projects. His publications include many books, articles in Vietnamese and some monographs, book chapters, articles in English on Urban studies; Marriage studies; Family relations studies; Gender Equality and Empowerment of women in Vietnam. Some of his publications (author or co-author) can be listed as: Migration and urbanization in Vietnam: Patterns, trends and differentials; Intra-family relationships of the Vietnamese families: Key findings from indepth-analysis of the Vietnam Family Survey; Estimating the costs of domestic violence against women in Viet Nam; Vietnamese marriage patterns in the Red River Delta: Tradition and change; Vietnamese family in the context of industrialization, modernization and integration from comparative approaches; Marriage in contemporary Vietnamese society; Research methods in Sociology; Gender equality in the ethnic minority areas in Vietnam; etc. He is interested in doing research on marriage and family relations, gender relation, elderly people.

Sarah N. Mitchell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development, Family Science, and Counseling at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on the experiences of minoritized individuals (e.g., LGBTQ+ and those with minoritized gender and racial/ethnic identities) – especially the impact of intersecting minoritized identities – within the context of family.

Natalia Carballo Murillo is Costa Rican (1985). She has a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Costa Rica. She obtained his master’s degree in Territorial and Population Studies, specializing in Demography, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, with the thesis: “Evolution of fertility patterns, Costa Rica, 1970–2000”. In 2021 she obtained his doctorate in Demography from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, with the thesis entitled: “Dynamics of the transformations of Costa Rican households. 1985–2015”. She is an associate professor at the University of Costa Rica, Pacific Campus, where she teaches courses on Costa Rican history, Latin America, and research methodologies. She is a researcher on families, households, and women’s issues. Some research projects in which she has participated are: “Women heads of household in the province of Puntarenas, 1973–2011” (2012), “Demographic transition and family composition in Puntarenas, 1927–2011” (2013–2015), and “Social reproduction of Costa Rican households from 1980–2015” (2016–2017). She is a member of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP).

Some of his recent publications are:

Carballo, Natalia (2018). “Mejor alfabetizadas, en mejores trabajos, solteras y en sus cuarentas: Mujeres jefas de hogar en Costa Rica”. En: Construyendo identidades y analizando desigualdades: Familias y trayectorias de vida como objeto de análisis en Europa y América. Siglos XVI-XXI. Coordinadores: Francisco Chacón, Albert Esteve y Ricardo Cicerchia. España, Centre d’Estudis Demografics.

Carballo, Natalia (2020). “Viudez y soltería en la costa pacífica de Costa Rica, siglos XX-XXI”. En: Vivir en soledad: viudedad, soltería y abandono en el mundo rural (España y América Latina, siglos XVI-XXI). Francisco García González (ed.). Madrid: Iberoamericana Editorial Vervuert.

Carballo, Natalia (2020). “Un aporte al estudio del voto femenino en Costa Rica”. En: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, número 167, volumen (I). Dirección electrónica: https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/sociales/article/view/42973

Carballo, Natalia (2022). “Una propuesta conceptual-teórica para entender las medidas en materia de población en Costa Rica. Segunda mitad del siglo XX”. En: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, número 172, volumen (II). Dirección electrónica: https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/sociales/article/view/49944/49983

Josip Obradović - Nationality: Croatian. Education: elementary and high school finished in Zagreb Croatia. Graduated Psychology and Philosophy at the Filozofski fakultet University of Zagreb. Obtained Ph.D. In Sociology, Filozofski fakultet The University of Zagreb. Employment: Departement od sociology the Filozofski fakultet University of Zagreb. Part-time employment at Institut Pilar Zagreb. Croatian studies at the University of Zagreb. Presently at Croatian Catholic University Zagreb Croatia. Fellowship: Ford Foundation Fellow: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley. Visiting professor: New York University New York USA, two times at the University of Georgia Athens Georgia USA, University of Calgary Calgary, Canada, and Fulbright Professor at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, USA.

Visiting scholar: Aston University, Birmingham, Great Britain, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, Lorand Eotvos University Budapest, Hungary, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, University of Warwick, Coventry Great Britain. Teaching Interest and Experience: Teaching 20 different courses in Psychology and Sociology for undergraduate and graduate students in Croatian and English language at Croatian and North American universities

Invited lectures: Given talks at about 30 universities In European, North and South American countries. Membership in organizations: American sociological organization, Croatian psychological organization, and National Council of Family Relations. Participation in professional meetings. Actively participated in more than 50 domestic and international meetings. Publications: As coauthor or coeditor published 14 books and more than 100 research papers in Croatian and English language.

Chigozirim Ogubuike is a Doctoral Student at the Institute of Child Health, University of Ibadan Nigeria. She is a result-oriented public health professional with experiences in both quantitative and qualitative research. She is passionate about Innovation and strategic solutions, she is culturally and socially sensitive, technologically savvy and can adapt to multiple and changing demands. Her research interests are in Child and Adolescent Health, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Family Research, Contemporary Issues, Public Health Research, Gender Variations, and Women Health. She is a young researcher and open for fellowship opportunities, research funding and further trainings.

Mofeyisara Oluwatoyin Omobowale is a Senior Research Fellow at the Social and Behavioural Health Unit, Institute of Child Health, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She obtained a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2014. She is a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies-African Humanities Programme (2012 and 2016), Cadbury Fellowship (Department of Anthropology and African, Birmingham University) 2014, Carnegie of New York, 2016 and a Short-Term Scholar, at Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI), Brown University, USA, 2013. She was an Investigator on Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenge funded project (2019–2021) – Immunization Strategies for Working Mothers (SHEVACCS). She blends anthropological knowledge, theories and methods in teaching and researching public health issues to impact society’s well-being positively.

David G. Schramm known as “Dr Dave” on campus and across the country, Dave Schramm is an Associate Professor and Family Life Extension Specialist at Utah State University in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. After graduating with his Ph.D. from Auburn University, he worked as a Professor at the University of Missouri for nine years. Shortly after arriving at USU in 2016, he was appointed by Governor Herbert to serve on Utah’s Commission on Marriage and he now serves as a Faculty Director of the Commission. He appears regularly on television and shares tips and videos on social media and YouTube to help individuals, parents, and couples thrive in their life journeys. In 2022, he launched a podcast called Stronger Marriage Connection. His research interests center on couple and family relationships, including marriage and divorce education, parenting education, and positivity and personal well-being. He enjoys translating research findings into principles, practices, and programming to help individuals and couples flourish. From British Columbia to Beijing, China, and from St. Louis to San Diego, Dr Dave has given over 500 presentations, classes, and workshops to a variety of audiences, including the United Nations and a TEDx talk in Florida. He married his high school sweetheart Jamie, they have four children, he just might have a slight addiction to peanut M&Ms, and the Schramm fam lives in North Logan, Utah.

Christina L. Scott, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology with Whittier College in Los Angeles and earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Kansas State University. Her program of research has spanned a range of topics focusing on women’s personal and sexual empowerment, including friends with benefits relationships and women’s sexual arousal. Currently, she is investigating perceptions of single mothers by choice and changing attitudes about motherhood. She has taught university courses in Shanghai, China and as a faculty member with Semester at Sea. She will be teaching at the University of Tokyo and Kyoritsu Women’s University in Tokyo, Japan in 2023 as a Fulbright Scholar.

J. Bart Stykes is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sam Houston State University, where he teaches Introduction to Sociology alongside courses on family sociology, research methods, and social statistics. His research examines (1) the links between the transition to parenthood, union formation/dissolution, and parental well-being, (2) children’s experiences in the family (e.g., family structure, complexity, and instability) and well-being, and (3) men’s experiences as fathers in families. Many of his contributions to existing research also consider data quality and survey measurement issues as well as the production and reproduction of gender inequity in families. Dr Stykes research has been published in family, demographic, and health journals including the Journal of Marriage and Family, Demography, Demographic Research, Society and Mental Health, and Maternal and Child Health Journal. He has also secured funding to support primary data collection to better understand the role conflict that student-parents experience and its implications for academic success.

Joshua J. Turner is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Sciences from Mississippi State University. His research interests include relationship education, remarriage and stepfamily issues, and health and aging.

Siri Wilder received her B.A. from Whittier College in 2017 and her M.S. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2022, where she is currently completing her Doctorate in Psychology. Her research interests include relational processes underlying committed and casual sex relationships and young adults’ attitudes toward sexuality. She was the inaugural recipient of the UT Dallas IRB HIVE award, recognizing positive contributions to human subjects research, and in 2022 received the UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award for Teaching Assistants. In addition to her research and teaching, she has enjoyed working on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in several committee roles.

Katharine H. Zeiders is an Associate Professor in the Norton School of Family Ecology at the University of Arizona. Her research explores the physiological and psychological effects of stressors on adolescent and young adult development.

Foreword

Conjugal life is a process, rather than a steady state, which couples achieve once they establish a relationship. The trajectories they develop throughout the life cycle are closely linked to political, economic, cultural, and demographic processes that shape their decisions, arrangements, and the roles couples and families serve in society. By studying marriage and cohabitation decision-making, the process of mate acquaintance, the criteria for mate selection, the age difference between the mates and the changing family structures among some other topics, we are able to understand how society and culture shape individual decisions as well as how individuals challenge the norms and make space for cultural change.

Over recent decades, the study of how couples form and what happens after they establish has received increasing attention from social and human disciplines. As with most fields of study the approaches vary and emphasize aspects considered relevant for the discipline in question. The interest in conjugal life from different perspectives and fields of study has frequently connected this discussion to marriage and its social forms, problems, status, rights and role. Much of this interest has been paid to analyze the quality of the conjugal bond, the conflicts and harmony in marital life, the conjugality and capital, the changes in the calendar of marriage and cohabitation, long-distance conjugality, conjugal rights, and the connections of conjugality to love, consanguinity, fertility, sexuality, paternity, polygamy, monogamy, children’s behaviour, and so on. These wide range of discussions come from both qualitative and quantitative approaches and allow us to see the dynamism of the conjugal trajectories.

Conjugal trajectories can be understood as the sexual-affective and domestic stories that married and cohabitant couples produce in order to stay together. The trajectory demands the acceptance of explicit and implicit agreements that are the reflection of wider social rules and norms that impact on their sexuality, displays of affection, rights and duties, and economy.

Conjugal trajectories are composed by four elements (Cuevas, 2019): the presence of at least one partner throughout the life cycle; the existence of a legal, symbolic or consensual relationship through which the marriage or union was formalized; the coexistence as a couple under the same or separate roofs and the recognition of these arrangements by the immediate family and social circles; and the presence or absence of children born out of that relationships or from previous marriages or unions.

Research on the formation of couples has changed and increased over the last several decades, improving and deepening our knowledge on the topic. Research literature from around the globe reflects that an increasing number of couples choose cohabitation over marriage, delaying marriage and getting divorced or separating in greater numbers than ever before. The changes have both a structural and cultural origin and show that given the extent of the phenomena that marital life is undergoing, people everyday feel more vulnerable and exposed to the pressures of having their private life under scrutiny in social networks, failing to achieve a balanced and happy relationship.

The chapters in this book present a coherent approach to the understanding of conjugal trajectories from different contemporary social problems. They represent the work of authors from different countries, disciplines and methodological perspectives who have approached it from both novel and classical objects of study to provide empirical research that contributes important results to the understanding of this knowledge. In this respect, the book contributes to the understanding of the evolving nature of marriage and cohabitation and does so from a contemporary perspective. The different chapters approach us to a variety of discussions of great relevance that shed light on complex arenas of marital life from the individual, group and intergenerational perspective of different cultures and social groups that, to a greater or lesser extent, show the impact of modernity on the intimacy of these individuals. A common finding made by several authors of the book is the increasing relevance of the partners’ qualities and communication skills as crucial factors for the conjugal life; a valuation that played a key role for the election of partner for Africans, North Americans, Europeans and Latin Americans alike. This is a reflection of the deep and unequal impact modernity has had across the world, mainly among educated and highly schooled populations. Another important contribution to the knowledge of conjugal life is the discussion of the stability and length of the conjugal bond amidst the growth in life expectancy at birth, the creation and application of divorce laws, the access to education of women, and the rise of cohabitation in all socioeconomic and age groups. The evidence found by several authors in different countries point out that conjugal relationships are more intense and unstable than ever before and that individuals face both the possibility of having several partners throughout their life but also the opportunity to live with the same couple for many decades.

The discussion on conjugal trajectories this book offers can be organized in three main discussions. The first of them groups the works that consider that intimacy, subjectivity, and happiness play a crucial role in marital satisfaction and quality. In An Exploratory Study of the Influence of Marital Attitudes and Skin Tone Perception on the Romantic Relationship Quality Among African American and Latinx Young Adults, Sarah N. Mitchell, Antoinette M. Landor and Katharine H. Zeiders discuss, from a quantitative approach, the ways in which attitudes about marriage (i.e., desire, importance, and expectation) relate to young adults’ current relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, intimacy, and commitment). They used the Marital Horizon Theory as a lens to understand young adults’ marital attitudes and relationship quality. Their research showed that for young adults, marital attitudes are associated with relationship quality. They aimed to shed light on how this association plays out for young adults of color, a research topic understudied. Additionally, they found that the influence of skin tone perception plays an important role in the relationship between marital attitudes and relationship quality. They studied these associations through a group of African American and Latinx young adults attending college. Their results indicated that marital expectations were positively associated with relationship quality in that young adults who expected to marry one day, reported greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy in their current relationships. Additionally, skin tone perception moderated the association between marital attitudes and relationship quality in two ways (i.e., between expectations and satisfaction and between importance and intimacy). Collectively, their findings suggest that differing levels of marital attitudes and skin tone perception contribute to young adults’ perceptions of relationship quality.

In Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Investigating Breakup Distress and Sexual Regret in Undergraduates’ Casual and Committed Sexual Relationships, Siri Wilder, Christina L. Scott and Micaela A. Chavarin explore how the rupture with the partner amongst teenagers was perceived and felt. The did so from a survey that considered a variety of demographic characteristics and several questions of their sexual history and divided the analysis in two groups, namely the distress caused by the breakup and the sexual regrets. In both groups, they explored the sex differences, the relationship differences, and the interaction when having casual sex and being in a romantic relationship. Their results show that there were statistically significant effects found for breakup distress as a function of sex and type of relationship and that women and men, as expected, behaved according to sex and gender roles and were deeply affected by their ideas on romantic love in the breakup. Whether casual or committed, teenagers had a wide range of emotional reactions to the end of their sexual relationships. However, the authors found that still remains to be seen whether these responses are significantly different across both types of relationships. They also found that there were statistically significant main effects found for breakup distress as a function of sex and the type of relationship.

In Romantic, Confessional and Post-Romantic: The Timeline of Conjugality at a Distance Between Mexico and the United States, Javiera Cienfuegos-Illanes discusses the construction of transnational marital bonds over time through a dual approach and a qualitative perspective. The author first, based on multi-site fieldwork carried out in 2011 and 2012 in two regions of Mexico and one of the United States, analyzes how transnational heterosexual couples with young children deal with being separated and construct their conjugality. This discussion considers two dimensions: intimacy and domestic organization. The second part of the chapter discusses the same results of the study after a decade, based on contact with the same participants and an exploration of their trajectories of intimacy and family organization. The author uses the notion of life cycle and family trajectory arriving at paths in the definition of intimacy that discuss the romantic component initially identified and add the confessional and post-romantic components as part of the experience of geographical distance for prolonged periods of migration, in addition to aging processes.

In Age-Homogamy and Age-Heterogamy in Three Generations of Heterosexual Women and Men in Mexico, Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández uses the date gathered in 81 semi-structured interviews carried on with heterosexual men and women from two Mexican cities. The author divides the discussion in three sections, namely the age-gap and age-discrepancy in the three generations of study; the role of schooling and social class in the significance of the age-gap and age-discrepancy relationships; and the gender inequality in couple relationships. Her work aims to contribute from a qualitative and sociological standpoint to this field of knowledge that has been understudied. The discussion focused on the meaning interviewers gave to the age difference from their subjectivity and intimacy to see how their ideas on the age difference were perceived. Her findings show a vigorous and strong trend of marriages and unions between older men and younger women where great gender inequalities persisted. This took place amidst signs of cultural change in the younger generations and highly educated men and women from middle classes who perceived the age difference negatively. This, rather than being a contradiction, reveals how schooling and social origin affect the resignification of the age difference, and moreover, suggests that the power relations in the couple were more equitable.

In Predictors of Marital Quality: What Makes a Happy Marriage in Croatia?, Josip Obradović and Mira Čudina explore the marital quality in Croatian marriage using the Socio-ecological model. The authors aim to contribute to this field of knowledge that has also been understudied in most non-western societies, where specific historical and cultural issues model conjugal life. Their work explores, from a quantitative perspective, the subjective and qualitative aspects of the couple’s perceptions on their marital life. By doing so, they aim to contribute to the explanation of the quality of the marital relationship. Their results show great similarity to the studies carried out in other social contexts and point out that marital harmony and distress in Croatia were very important predictors of the marital quality and pretty similar to the results observed in the United States and some Western countries. Thus, it seems that the values of satisfaction, individuality, companionship and mutual help – all a reflection of intimacy and late modernity – are predictors of the quality of conjugal life irrespective of socio-cultural context. However, traditionalism, marital partners’ personalities, and engagement in child care are elements of great value in the socio-cultural context in Croatia.

A second group of works analyze the conjugal trajectories through marriage formation. In Marriage Formation in Vietnam: Characteristics and Changes, Nguyen Huu Minh and Bui Thu Huong use data from the Vietnam Family Survey and Vietnam Marriage Survey to examine the changing patterns of marriage formation in Vietnam. Due to many of the changing socio-economic and legal factors, they find that traditional expectations concerning marriage have given way to a more individualist form, such that those seeking to get marriage focus primarily upon their desire for individual happiness. Although concerns about family obligations still remain, the various decision-making processes concerning mate selection and marriage are no longer controlled predominantly by parents. Instead, the independent preferences of contemporary young adults are slowly, but steadily, serving to change the patterns of marriage in Vietnam.

The distinctions between traditional forms of marriage, which often are controlled by parents, and more progressive forms, wherein individuals have greater choice in the selection of a partner, are also examined by Shichao Du in Education, Marriage Cohorts, and Different Pathways to Marriage in East Asian Societies. Using data from the East Asian Social Survey, this chapter examines the role of education and change over time in the marriage trajectories of young adults in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Educational attainment (more years of schooling) is associated with fewer arranged marriages, and more self-initiated marriages. Over time, arranged marriages are shown to be on the decline, while individual choice is revealed as the evolving form in the selection of a partner. These patterns are discussed within the framework of developmentalism.

Natalia Carballo Murillo explores the nature of reproductive strategies across family generations in Life Trajectories and Reproductive Strategies of Costa Rican Households: An Intergenerational Perspective. Using qualitative interviews across multiple generations, she finds that both conjugal trajectories and reproductive strategies steadily changed. Contextual factors from the larger society, such as economic stress, are shown to bring about change in familial attitudes, gender roles, and fertility strategies. Older generations are shown to be more traditional and conservative in these regards, while younger generations are shown to feel compelled to adjust and adapt more readily. Given the complexity of Costa Rican families, such changes are not necessarily easy to accomplish, as the influence of familial ties across generations can be quite substantial.

In What Difference Does Marriage Make? Life Course Trajectories and the Transition to Marriage for Gay Men and Lesbians, Aaron Hoy examines the varied paths to marriage among gay and lesbian individuals. Using a series of semi-structured interviews, he finds that the various routes taken en route to marriage had lasting and meaningful impacts upon the transition into marriage. A distinction is found between the “short and direct” route to marriage, and the “long and winding” trajectory, with the former route often involving large and elaborate wedding ceremonies, while the latter commonly involved relatively small, and even unplanned, ceremonies. The emotional meanings and experiences of these two trajectories were quite different, and reveal much about the complex and nuanced nature of marriage transitions for gays and lesbians.

The third group of chapters explores the conjugal trajectories through marriage stability and family structures. In Identifying Predictors of First Versus Subsequent Divorce Among Divorcing Parents, Joshua J. Turner, Olena Kopystynska, Kay Bradford, Brian J. Higginbotham and David G. Schramm examine the various factors that promote vulnerabilities among remarried couples. Using data from a large sample of divorcing parents who participated in a state-mandated, online divorce education course, the authors found that individuals going through their first divorce were more likely to identify growing apart and infidelity as reasons for seeking a divorce. Among those going through a subsequent divorce, though, problems such as alcohol and drug abuse, disagreements concerning childrearing, financial problems, and a combination of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, as the primary factors which prompted their decision to seek a divorce. Their research not only contributes to our conceptual and theoretical understanding of divorce, but also yielded implications for practitioners.

Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth, J. Bart Stykes and Karen Benjamin Guzzo examine the linkages between unintended childbearing and union dissolution. In Unintended Higher-Order Births and Union Stability: Variation by Union Characteristics, the authors find that unintended childbearing, cohabitation, and stepfamily status are all linked with a greater risk of dissolution. The impact of unintended childbearing is much more complicated, though, as it is associated with a higher risk of dissolution for married couples, as compared to cohabiting couples. Their findings strongly suggest that it is selection, rather than causation, which explains the association between unintended childbearing and union instability among higher-order births.

In Dynamism and Changes in the Abia Family Structure and Conjugal Relationship: The Influence of the Nigerian Civil War, Chigozirim Ogubuike, Mofeyisara Oluwatoyin Omobowale, and Olukemi K. Amodu focus on intergenerational variations in conjugality in different types of Abia families, comparing their changes and conjugal relations from traditional times to contemporary times. Specifically, they cast a glance at the dynamism and changes in the family structure and conjugal relationships at different eras of the family life cycle through a qualitative approach aiming to know how Nigerian Civil War affected their family structures and conjugal relationships. Their findings reveal a great dynamism and changes in family structures, with a prevalence of polygyny prior to the civil war, the emergence of step-parent and single-parent families during the civil war, and monogamy being most prevalent, with increasing single-parent and step-parent families contemporaneously. The conjugal relationship shifted from having concubines (acceptable and practiced covertly) to having side chicks (practiced covertly). The Nigerian civil war had an impact on the dynamics and the family structures of Nigerian families during the civil war and the immediate post-civil war. The authors also found out that other factors such as religion, education, civilization, and migration, among others, also influenced the contemporary Abia family structure. In short, their findings provide a better understanding on family structure dynamics and the possible use of this information in solving issues regarding family and conjugal trajectories.

We extend our most sincere gratitude to the authors for the excellent work, and for contributing to this volume. Additional thanks go out to the reviewers, members of the editorial board of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, and to the always helpful staff at Emerald Publishing.

Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández

Sampson Lee Blair