Romance in Childless Heterosexual Couples in America - Dissertation Example

The quality of marriages among childless heterosexual couples has generally declined over the past few decades. Even in marriages that do last beyond a decade, it is important that the quality of the marriage is sufficiently high that the couple is content with their lives. This study examines the presence of opposing positive factors that contribute towards the consolidation of heterosexual marriages between couples. These may be coping strategies to deal with the pressures of childlessness, but more specifically, a set of behaviors that maintain viability in a marriage even after a heterosexual married couple has been together for many years.

A qualitative investigation will be conducted primarily using interviews to examine how and why childless heterosexual couples in long-term marital relationships remain married. Specifically, what behaviors or other factors seem to be present in such couples with sustained marital relationships? What are the respective roles of such factors as religious duty, passionate love, fear, companionate factors, and romance in the endurance and viability of the marriage? This study will seek to identify these behaviors and factors and attempt to associate them with sustained marriages between such couples.

The participants for the study will be randomly selected from the population of childless heterosexual couples from different ethnic origins living in America whose marriages have had lasted for at least 25 years. 25 years has been selected as the period of judgment.