The key to a lasting marriage. A literature review - Essay Example

With the onslaught of industrialization however, the institution seems to have lost the respect and honor that was accorded to it with the result that divorce rates are on the rise. This paper discusses the respectable institution of marriage as a literature review of academic peer reviewed journal articles that discuss the key to a happy and successful marriage while relating to the discipline of psychology. I would like to start this literature review by discussing the financial aspect of marriage by reviewing a journal article that discusses how a change in the income level of a wife may affect the marriage.

The article titled "Changes in wives' income: Effects on marital happiness, psychological well-being, and the risk of divorce." by Rogers and DeBoer. The article tries to answer "what happens in marriages in which wives have increased their income Does subsequent marital happiness improve or worsen Does the psychological well-being of husbands and wives increase or decline Does the risk of divorce increase, or is it lessened" (Rogers) This article is a good starting point as in today's modern world it is very much a norm that both husband and wife are working.

Hence this article relates to a key aspect of modern married life. As per the article the authors found that a significant increase in a married women's income doesn't have any significant effects on their husbands. However the article does make us realize that a married man is comparatively less happy when his wife's percentage contribution to total family income increases. Nevertheless as per the article the chances of divorce is not significantly affected by the change in this percentage. Although the authors suggest that the increase in relative Income does on the contrary indirectly lower the risk of divorce by increasing the wife's martial happiness.

To get to these results the authors used date from a sample of 1,047 married individuals (not couples) in medium-duration marriages, taken from a survey that begun in 1980 and continued to 1997. The authors have used structural equation modeling to gauge the discussed impact from 1980 to 1988. Final analysis was based on analysis using information of how these changes affect the risk of divorce between 1988 and 1997. I feel that although this article was fully researched but further research also needs to be conducted on the consequential affects on married life when the same females who had experienced a rise in income, experience a decline or a total loss of income.

My second choice for the literature review is an article by Arturo Roizblatt, and other authors on long lasting marriages in Chile that was published in the Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal. The article discusses the Chilean segment of a study that included Canada, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and the United States of America with respect to long-term marriages. The study aimed to identify the main reasons for couples surviving for a long term while identifying their characteristics.

The article also aimed at to prove if there could be an