CHILDREN AND MARITAL PROBLEMS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to draw together within an evaluative framework British research‐based material concerning the impact of children, or the absence of children, on the quality and stability of the marriage relationship. The focus, therefore, is quite specific, and there is no attempt to review the whole corpus of literature on childbearing and child‐rearing. The relevant material is limited, fragmentary, and scattered across the literature of several disciplines. For such reasons it has been necessary in parts to draw upon American research both to indicate where the gaps and possibilities in indigenous research may lie and to show how far British findings supplement and support the American. Despite its thinness and incohesiveness, however, British material is adequate to test some common ideas about the relationship between children and marriage and, as will be seen, some of the conclusions to which it leads are counter‐intuitive, or at least contrary to beliefs which are widely found amongst relevant professionals as well as amongst the general public.

Citation

Chester, R. (1982), "CHILDREN AND MARITAL PROBLEMS", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 5-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb020819