Guide to the Constructs: The Marriage Relationship as a Behavioral System

Mapping the Behavioral Landscape of Marriage

The decisions that husbands and wives make on a day-to-day basis about how to spend their time create marital patterns -- or a "marital lifestyle." A husband does dishes one day, but leaves them for the wife the next day. A couple decides to go to a movie and invites another couple to accompany them. Spouses sit down together with a beer or glass a wine to talk about how their day went. The decisions that husbands and wives reach, and the actions and activities that result from those decisions, when aggregated across days, create their particular marital style.

What a husband and wife do on a particular day, of course, provides only an opaque window into their marriage. If couples' activities were mapped over a representative number of days, however, the marital activities would produce patterns that when summarized provide clear portraits of the marriages. The procedures used in the PAIR Project were designed to gather data about how couples use their time over several days -- i.e., enough days to provide the data required to create recognizable summary characterizations of each marriage.

The first step in describing marriages is to identify the relevant activities and behaviors. Activities were identified through two separate processes. First, we requested a group of newlyweds, drawn from the same population as our sample, to keep detailed diaries of their daily activities for a 2- or 3-day period. At the same time, we reviewed previous research employing diary records (e.g., Berk & Berk, 1979; Russell, 1978; Walker & Woods, 1976; Wills, Weiss, & Patterson, 1974) to identify activities participants were asked to record. The list we created included activities relating to maintaining a living environment (instrumental activities) and activities done for enjoyment (recreational activities). Activities that husbands and wives do together (companionate activities), as well as activities done with friends and with kin (i.e., members of their social network) seemed important to track. Finally, it seemed useful to get a sense how much spouses talk together, how affectionate and negative they are toward each other, and how much conflict they experience in their marriage. Activities are classified in terms of two general types: (a) instrumental and (b) recreational. Second, the social context of the activity is identified -- i.e., whether the activity is pursued alone, together with the spouse, and/or with others.

Social activities are shown, furthermore, as consisting of interpersonal behavior sequences. Such sequences can be characterized in a variety of ways. In the PAIR Project we gathered information about the extent to which husbands and wives are (a) affectionate toward each other and (b) experience conflict and negativity.

The distinction between instrumental and recreational activities forms a broad classification system that reflects the division of family activities into those necessary for maintaining a household and those engaged in for enjoyment. The people with whom activities are pursued can be classified according to a variety of schemes, the choice of which depends on the importance of a particular distinction for the research at hand. For example, research examining the centrality of the wife in how a husband uses his leisure time requires representative data concerning his leisure activity patterns, including those pursued with and without his spouse. The activities people engage in, the temporal patterning of movement from one activity to another, and the ways in which activities are coordinated can be examined to provide a portrait of a family group.

The second step is to classify activities within each region. To tap "division of household labor," it is necessary to identify the activities that fit "household labor." These activities obviously include such things as preparing meals, doing the dishes, vacuuming the house, making the bed, cleaning the house, and perhaps also mowing the lawn and other work around the house (repairs, gardening). We have found it useful to subdivide activities within regions. Thus, for example, work at home has generally been divided into "separate spheres," with wives being responsible for the bulk of the day-to-day housework, and men taking care of more periodic matters (such as indoor and outdoor maintenance). The distinction between these two types of tasks -- what we refer to as "female sex-typed" and "male sex-typed" tasks -- turns out to be an important distinction.

To capture marital patterns, we telephoned spouses during the evening and asked them to provide systematic reports of their involvement in household tasks, leisure activities, and socioemotional behavior (affection & negativity) for the 24-hour period ending at 5 PM the evening of the call. Each instrumental and recreational activity that a person performed is indexed by the social context within which the activity is pursued. Activities can be pursued alone, with the spouse, and with any combination of spouse, friends, and kin. The coding system we have developed produces fine-grained categorization systems both with regard to types of activities and the social context. Husbands and wives also provided information about conversations that they had, either on the telephone or in person, that lasted five minutes or longer, and the number of times, if any, conflicts, disagreements, or differences of opinion arose in their marriage that day. The data are gathered over a series of days to create summary indices of various marital interaction patterns.

During the first three phases, couples were called on 9 occasions, 5 weekdays and 4 weekend days, spaced over a two-week to three-week period. Husbands and wives were interviewed independently about the same 24-hour periods during each telephone interview. After examining the reliability coefficients for variables derived from the telephone interviews during the first three phases, it was decided to reduce the number of calls to six calls for Phase 4. Data were aggregated over the multiple days to create measures various aspects of their marriage, including the amount of conflict, the division of labor, the amount marital companionship, sexual patterns, and social network involvements.

The telephone interviews focused on the five regions of marriage, as follows: (1) household tasks (and child care for those with children); (2) leisure activities; (3) socioemotional behavior; (4) conversations; and (5) conflict. The following data were coded for each activity pursued, regardless of its type:

Household & Child Care Tasks

The list of household child care tasks was extensive, incorporating most of the relevant activities  within each region. For household tasks, respondents indicated the number of occurrences of each task during the 24-hour period and, for each occurrence, whether the activity was performed with or without the spouse. To save time, respondents had been given a copy of the list of household tasks grouped as in the table shown in Appendix E. Instead of reading each item, the interviewer asked, "Did you do any of the activities in group A?" If the response was positive, we gathered the rest of the information.

Each household and child care activity is indexed by couple (cpl #), by whether the report was provided by the husband or the wife (sps), and by phase. Each activity is thereby defined as a separate record, coded according to the information contained in the chart below (see Appendix F for more details about the coding system).

This indexing system makes it possible to aggregate the data by couple, spouse, or any combination of codes shown in the table. The system is extremely flexible. It is possible, for example, to determine the proportion of Tuesdays husbands do the dishes, or using Phase 4 data whether husbands enjoy doing the dishes more than they do doing the laundry. We can examine the extent to which husbands do female sex-typed household tasks, or how the work roles of the spouses affects their work around the house. We can determine whether wives are happier with their marriage on days when husbands do more household work. We can determine whether household work increasingly gets divided along traditional lines with time.

Leisure Activities

Once the respondents provided information about household work, they provided information about their participation in leisure activities. The leisure activities were grouped into the categories shown in Appendix G. Participants were asked whether or not the individual pursued the leisure activity with his or spouse; then, they were asked to report on the nature of their relationship with anyone else involved. If an activity was pursued in more than one social context at a time (e.g., with friends & kin), the time was apportioned equally between the two tasks. During phase 4, participants reported the level of affect on a 7-point scale. The leisure activities were indexed as shown below:

The multiple indexing system makes it possible to create a variety of variables reflecting how spouses use their free time. Measures pertaining to the amount of marital companionship, the extent to which couples are involved friends and kin, either together or apart can be created. It is also possible to examine how leisure patterns change over time. Do couples who have little in common in terms of leisure interests become less companionate with time?

Marital Interaction

The affective character of the marriage relationship is reflected in how well the spouses treat one another on a day-to-day basis. During the The affective character of the marriage relationship is reflected in how well the spouses treat one another on a day-to-day basis. During the telephone interviews, each spouse was read each statement, in turn, and asked to indicate how often, if at all, each of the behaviors shown in the table below occurred during the 24-hour period ending at 5 P.M., the evening of the call. The items were later grouped, based on a series of factor analyses, into three types of behavior: (a) affectional expression, (b) sexual interest, and (c) negativity.

Conflict. Each spouse was asked each day to indicate the number of times he or she had experienced disagreements, arguments, or differences of opinion with the other spouse during the 24-hour period and to describe, briefly, what the conflict was about. The interviewer recorded the description and coded the topics of conflict according to a predetermined list. This information was gathered during the first three phases only.

Conversations. Respondents were asked to recall each conversation lasting five minutes or longer (either in person or on the phone), excluding those that occurred at work or school and that pertained to their job or studies. For each conversation reported, respondents indicated who the conversation was with and its duration. The conversational partners were coded using the same scheme that was used to code leisure partner participants. This information was gathered only during phases 1-3.

Daily Reports. At the conclusion of each call during Phase 4, respondents were asked to indicate on 7-point scales (a) how relaxed or hassled their day had been; and (b) how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their marriage.

Features of Marriage Relationships

The next sections focus primarily on measures derived from the telephone diary interviews. The measures are grouped, however, according to topic rather than the method used to collect the data. Data pertaining to some topics, for example the amount of conflict and negativity in the marriage, were drawn from both the telephone diary procedures and from questionnaire responses. The questionnaires are described below when measures based on them are summarized.

Marital Roles. Table 4a shows key features of marital role performance that can be characterized using data from the telephone diary interviews. The variables shown below are based on aggregating data for particular husbands and wives across days for particular phases. Since each activity husbands and wives participated in is coded along multiple dimensions (see Appendix F), the data can be organized and aggregated in a variety of different ways.

Marital Companionship. Marital Companionship can be indexed along a number of dimensions. The extent of companionship is reflected in the number of activities and the amount of time husbands and wives spend pursing activities together. Some marriages take on the character of a "working partnership," with the husband and wife cooperating with each other, but having separate spheres of responsibility and leisure activity. Other couples, in contrast, do household work together and center their leisure around each other. Some spouses routinely engage each other in discussions; others engage in chit-chat, but rarely engage each other in an extended dialogue. Some couples may favor the husband's interests when they do things together, others may favor the wives' interests. Table 4d shows the key variables relating to marital companionship contained in the database.

Leisure Time. The telephone diary interviews provided information about how husbands and wives use their free time. Variables pertaining to overall leisure patterns, and the network of friends and kin with whom spouses spend their leisure time, are gleaned from the records of leisure activities (See Appendix H). The indexing by social context is more detailed than implied in the table below.

Conversation with Kin and Friends. The data on leisure with friends and kin is complemented by data pertaining to the amount of time husbands and wives spend in conversation. (Note: conversation with spouse is shown above under "marital companionship.")

Marital Interaction Patterns

Socioemotional Behavior. The PAIR project used several procedures to get at the affective quality of marital interaction. The telephone diary interviews yielded information concerning the extent to which husbands and wives express affection, negativity, and showed sexual interest in each other. The information generated concerning the frequency of arguments, disagreements, or differences of opinion gathered during the phone interviews provides additional data about Socioemotional patterns. The data concerning Socioemotional behavior are summarized for each individual using each daily report as a separate record. The information recorded on the daily records is shown below:

This aggregating system makes it possible to examine a variety of issues. Thus, for example, it is possible to see how Socioemotional behavior varies in connection with the spouses' work hours or their daily ratings of marital satisfaction. The variables shown in the table below are created from the daily telephone interviews in which each spouse reports on the behavior of their partner. The data are aggregated over the multiple days, and averaged, providing indices of:

Global Assessments of Communication Patterns. During each phase of the investigation, husbands and wives were asked to think of the previous two months of their marriage and to use that period as a frame of reference for completing a questionnaire developed by Braiker and Kelley (1979) that was designed to measure: (a) love for the partner, (b) ambivalence about the relationship; (c) conflict and negativity; and (d) efforts to maintain the relationship. The first two subscales pertain to evaluations of the partner and marriage; they will be discussed later when we summarize the data available in the project pertaining to how partners evaluate their marriage and their spouse. Conflict was measured by questions pertaining to the amount of overt conflict and negativity in the relationship. The questions pertaining to Maintenance referred to the extent to which the partners enacted behaviors designed to enhance satisfaction or eliminate sources of dissension.

Global assessments of conflict made by participants are more subjective, and hence more open to distortion, than are measures of conflict and negativity derived from telephone diaries. On the other hand, overt friction is not a daily event in many marriages, particularly when couples are newlyweds, and thus it is difficult to get a solid fix on how much conflict couples typically experience when diary data are gathered over a relatively short period of time (6 to 9 days) (see Robins, 1991). The best estimate of conflict and negativity in marriage are likely to be derived from combining the data from the telephone diaries with subjective reports.

The short form of the Communications Patterns Questionnaire, as described by Heavey, Layne, & Christensen (1993), was modified for use in the Phase 4 follow-up of the PAIR Project couples. First, some of the jargon was removed from the questions to make the questions more comprehensible to laypersons. Thus, "threaten with negative consequences" was changed to "threaten to do bad things to each other." Second, a few questions to added to some subscales so that at least three questions tapped each subscale. The scale measures spouse's perceptions of how they deal with differences that arise in their marriage over such matters as work around the house, sex, and money.

Other Marital and Family Lifestyle

Data were gathered during Phase 4 concerning meals and sleep patterns.

Social Network

In addition to the variables in Tables 4g and 4h, more information about the social network is contained in the telephone diary data, but these variables are not included in the integrated database. Additional data concerning husbands' and wives' involvement with others was gathered from each spouse during Phases 2 and 3 of the study as part of the face-to-face interviews. We wanted to obtain systematic information from each spouse concerning their relationships with both their own parents and their partner's parents. They were asked to answer the following question about each parent:

How often during the past two months have you spent time with or talked (either in person or on the phone) with _______ over the past two months?

They were then told to list the people with whom they had the most contact with over the past two months. Those with extensive social networks listed their six most frequent companions. They indicated how often over the past two months they spent time with or talked with that person. They were told they could list any acquaintance: friends, relatives, neighbors, or anyone else, including co-workers, providing that they spent time with them when they were not actually working.

This procedure generates the network of people with whom the individual has most contact -- i.e., the "interactive" network). This is important to keep in mind because had we used a procedure whereby people were nominated by their psychological importance, the network generated might be comprised of different people (Surra & Milardo, 1991). We do ask them to indicate how important each person's opinion of them is to them, however, and thus it can be seen how much their interactive network consists of people they value.

The participants were asked to provide each person's initials and to indicate for each person they listed whether the person is a friend or relative. For friends, they were asked to identify whether they think of the person mainly as their own friend or as also a friend of their spouse. For relatives, they were asked to indicate the nature of the kin relationship (e.g., wife's mother). Next, they answered the same question about frequency of contact over the past two months that had been asked about their parents. They then estimated for each person on the list the frequency with which the person had had contact with each of the others over the past two months. Finally, again thinking about the past two months, they answered the above questions about each of the individuals on their list. The questions listed above pertain to network sources of "social support" and to "conflict" with members of the network. During the phase three interviews, respondents were asked to think about all of the people on their list, and to indicate their satisfaction with each person in reference to (1) their help around the house, (2) the amount of the time spent together, and (3) the degree to which they have been able to talk about feelings, problems, or personal matters. Those with children were also asked to rate how satisfied they have been with (4) how much help they have gotten overall with child care or babysitting.

They were also asked to indicate how satisfied or dissatisfied they have been with: (1) how much help they have gotten with jobs around the house, (2) the amount of time they have had to spend with these people in leisure activities, (3) the degree to which they have been able to talk about feelings, problems, or personal matters. Those with children were also asked to rate how satisfied they have been with (4) how much help they have gotten overall with child care or babysitting.

Marital Types

A typology of marital structure was developed by means of a cluster analysis of data regarding husbands' and wives' day-to-day life together in work and leisure (Johnson, Huston, Gaines, & Levinger, 1992). Bernard's (1964) discussion of the central features of marriage provided the rationale for using the following five variables as a basis for the typology: (a) gender asymmetry in labor force participation; (b) sex-typing of household work; (c) differences between husbands and wives in amount of leisure time spent with friends; (d) differences in amount of leisure time spent with kin; and (e) amount of leisure time spouses spend together. The typology was based on data gathered during Phase 4; it was replicated, however, with data gathered during Phases 1 and 2. The four types of marriages differentiated are shown below. This variable is also not included in the integrated database.

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