Psycho-social Determination of Marital Success

Abstract

The study aimed at establishing the interrelationship between the subjective sense of marital success (measured in the scale of own system) and certain objective factors. The survey, including 300 married couples, was conducted by means of the personal data questionnaire, Prężyna scale of religious attitudes and Eysenck questionnaire. The analysed factors point out to certain interdependencies although they do not exhaust the problem. Some proved statistically relevant. These are: the duration of the betrothal and marriage, the fact of having independent home, children, the degree of neurosis in females. Some of the factors certainly influence the sense of marital success (e. g. duration of the betrothal period), others although undoubtedly exercising the influence depend themselves upon the success of the marriage (e. g. female neurosis). Others are mutually determinant, at least to a certain degree, e. g. having a flat of one’s own depends on proper financial means while living conditions influence the relationship with parents-in-law who share the flat. Only the entire system of the determinants conditions the actual situation. The results constitute merely a tentative survey of the problem. Each of the factors demands further, more through investigation. The study has been undertaken at the Department of Educational Psychology, the Catholic University of Lublin.