Guide to the Constructs: Courtship

Living Situation during Courtship     Graphing Procedures      Structural Features of Courtship  Timing of Events     Subjective Evaluation of Courtship    

Since the original purpose of the PAIR project was to examine the connection between the processes through which premarital partners join together as mates and the subsequent cohesion and stability of their marriage, it was necessary to develop a procedure for describing couples' courtship experiences and differentiating couples in terms of their courtships.

A highly structured interview was developed to gather data concerning couples' courtships. Data concerning the courtships were gathered separately from the partners during the first phase of the study. The interview procedure involved reconstruction of the courtship in terms of the evolution of the spouses' commitment to marriage using the graphing procedure described in detail below. Once the graphs were completed, the respondents showed the times during the courtship when they were casually dating, regularly dating, a "couple," and "committed to marriage." They then were asked to indicate if and when various events took place in their courtship (e.g., first intercourse, began living together). Once this was done, they also filled out a questionnaire while thinking about the period of time when they were a "couple," but not yet certain they would marry. The reader interested in more detail concerning the graphing procedure and the data it yields is referred to several papers (Cate, Huston, & Nesselroade, 1986; Huston, Surra, Fitzgerald, & Cate, 1981; Lloyd & Cate, 1985a, 1985b; Surra, 1985; Surra, Arizzi, & Asmussen, 1988; Surra & Huston, 1987).

Living Situation during Courtship

Data were obtained from both partners when they were newlyweds concerning their living situation prior to when they began to live together, regardless of whether they cohabited before or after they were wed.

The Graphing Procedures

Participants were told that people arrive at the decision to marry in many ways, and that our interest was in getting a picture of the variety rather than trying to ascertain whether one pattern is more typical than another. Then, each participant was asked to give a brief, informal description of the relationship from first meeting to marriage. These descriptions allowed the interviewer to obtain a general idea of how the interviewee remembered the premarital relationship. To elicit more detail, each interviewee was asked to construct a graph, showing how the probability of marriage changed from the time the relationship started until the marriage indeed took place. A set of superimposed graphs, taken from data gathered independently from the husband and wife, illustrates the kind of information contained in these representations (See graph below). Interviewers and newly-married spouses create the graphs jointly, starting at the time when the couple first paired off and ending with their wedding day.

The first step was to explain to the participants how to graph the trajectory of their courtship (see Figure 1). The participants were show a blank sheet of graph paper, marked which the beginning and end dates of the courtship. It was pointed out that the horizontal axis represented "time," with division standing for 1 month; the vertical axis represented the chance of marrying their partner (with probabilities ranging from 0% to 100%. Participants were told they would use the graph to show how the probability of marriage changed over time, and to recognize that the need to consider both their own feelings about marriage and the feelings they thought their partner had at the time.

To facilitate drawing the trajectory, participants were asked to think of significant events in their relationship that might aid them in remembering what was going on at a particular time. Then the interviewer and the participant jointly constructed the trajectory. Participants were asked to think back to the beginning of their relationship and to estimate what they would have thought was the likelihood of they and their eventual spouse would someday get married. Then, participants indicated when they felt that the chance of marriage had increased or decreased and how much it had gone up or down. They subsequently showed, with the help of the interviewer, how the probability points should be connected (e.g., whether the change was a monotonic progression, a sudden shift, etc). After connecting the two points, they were asked to explain what led them to believe that the probability of marriage had changed.

The interviewers used a modified version of a classification system developed by Surra (1980) for her doctoral dissertation to code the responses provided by the respondents. The same procedure was repeated until the entire trajectory was drawn. Some of the variety in the shape of the graphs can be seen in the illustrations shown to the left.

The interviewers were instructed to elicit precise statements of factors affecting the change in the chance of marriage and to probe for details. They coded up to four explanations for each segment demarcated by a change in the probability of marriage, using a fourteen category coding system. Illustrations of some of the kinds of explanations, and how they would be coded, is shown below. A complete copy of the coding scheme is shown in Appendix D.

The explanations are identified in terms of the: (a) segment of the courtship to which they refer, (b) month into the relationship when the segment began and the probability of marriage at the beginning point, and (c) the month into the relationship when the segment ended and the probability of marriage at that second point in time, (d) the amount and direction of change in probability; and (e) the slope, or rate of change, over the period of time constituted by the segment.

Dividing the Graph into Relationship Periods

The next task was to have each participant indicate on the graph the period in the premarital relationship that represented the time or times they were:

Casually Dating: Partners dated each other occasionally, with o expectation of seeing each other again soon after dates.

Regularly Dating: Partners dated each other frequently, but not exclusively. They expected see each other again soon after dates.

A Couple: Partners saw themselves and others saw them as a couple. They dated each others exclusively, and were invited to parties as a pair.

Committed to Marriage: The partners had agreed to marry (regardless of whether they had publicly announced their intention).

Structural Features of the Courtship

The graphing procedure yielded information about the overall course of the courtship, including its length, the length of time couples spent in each of the normatively-defined stages of commitment, the rate at which their commitment accelerated, and the rockiness of the courtship (as indexed by how often the couple broke up, and how many times commitment dropped).

The Timing of Relationship Events During Courtship

With the graph in front of them, the participants were asked to provide information in response to each of the questions listed below. When the respondent reported that an event, thought, or type of activity occurred, he or she was asked to locate the month it occurred, or if it was an activity that took place over time, the period of time during which the activity occurred. Multiple occurrences of events (e.g., break-ups) were noted. The data are organized in the database such that the timing of the events is interdigitated with the probability of marriage and the stage of commitment. This allows, for example, variables to be created that make distinctions between couples who reportedly had sexual intercourse, or who began living together, at varying degrees of commitment and estimated probabilities of marriage.

The data shown to the right, when combined with the graph data, provide a richer picture of the courtship:

a. Cohabitation. Did the couple live together before they were married. If so, when did they begin cohabiting? What stage of involvement were they in when they began to cohabit (casually dating, etc.)?

b. Sexual Involvement. For those who engaged in premarital intercourse: How long were they together before they first had intercourse and at what stage of involvement were they in when intercourse first occurred? What was the perceived probability of marriage, as taken from the graph, at the time of first intercourse? How many months were they involved sexually before they were married?

c. Pregnancy. Did the woman become pregnant before marriage? If so, data were recorded concerning the month into the relationship when this happened, the stage of the courtship, and the perceived probability of marriage.

d. Met Partner's Parents. The number of months into the relationship, the stage, and the probability of marriage when each person met his or her partner's parents was recorded.

e. Timing of Love and Commitment. Individuals were asked to report when they first felt in love with their partner and when they were first certain they wanted to marry their partner. They were also asked to report when they first believed their partner was in love with them and when they believed their partner wanted to marry. The time into the relationships (in months), the stage of involvement, and the estimated probability of marriage were taken from the graph.

Two variables relate to the relative timing of "falling in love:"

	The comparison of when the husband and wife fell in love: the month into the relationship when the husband and fell in love minus the month wife fell in love.
	Respondent's sense of whether he/she fell in love earlier or later than his/her partner: when the respondent fell in love, minus when he/she felt that partner loved them.

Subjective Evaluation of Courtship

Braiker and Kelley (1979) developed a 25-item questionnaire to measure the four dimensions of relationships. The period of time when the participant reported they were a "couple" was pointed out to the respondent, and he or she was primed to think about that period while filling out the 25-item questionnaire developed by Braiker and Kelley (1979) Participants were asked to rate on a 9-point scale the degree or extent to which each statement in the Braiker and Kelley scale represented their experiences in their relationship during the middle three months of the time when they were a "couple". This particular time period was chosen because by then most couples have established a regular pattern of interaction and yet have not made a commitment to marry. It was expected that the subscales would show more variability across the couples during this period than either earlier or later in the courtship. The four subscales are described as follows:

	Love, defined in feelings of belonging, closeness, and attachment.
	Conflict, as reflected the amount of overt conflict and negativity in the relationship.
	Ambivalence, as represented by feelings of confusion concerning the partner and anxiety about loss of independence.
	Maintenance Behaviors, characterized primarily in terms of communication between partners designed to increase satisfaction or decrease dissatisfaction.

This page created & maintained by Shanna Smith, ella@utxsvs.cc.utexas.edu