Are the marriages of lower-income couples less satisfying than the marriages of more affluent couples? To address this question, we compared trajectories of marital satisfaction among couples with a wide range of household incomes. The marital satisfaction of 862 Black, White, and Latino newlywed spouses (N=431 couples) was assessed five times, each nine months apart, over the first four years of marriage. Lower-income couples did not have less satisfying marriages on average, nor did their satisfaction decline more steeply on average. However, they did experience (1) significantly greater fluctuations in marital satisfaction across assessments, and (2) significantly more variability between husbands and wives. If efforts to support the marriages of low-income couples are to address the unique characteristics of their marital development, these findings suggest that efforts to stabilize their marriages may be more effective than efforts to improve their satisfaction alone.

Marriages and other intimate partnerships are facilitated or constrained by the social networks within which they are embedded. To date, methods used to assess the social networks of couples have been limited to global ratings of social network characteristics or network data collected from each partner separately. In the current article, the authors offer new tools for expanding on the existing literature by describing methods of collecting and analyzing duocentric social networks, that is, the combined social networks of couples. They provide an overview of the key considerations for measuring duocentric networks, such as how and why to combine separate network interviews with partners into one shared duocentric network, the number of network members to assess, and the implications of different network operationalizations. They illustrate these considerations with analyses of social network data collected from 57 low-income married couples, presenting visualizations and quantitative measures of network composition and structure.

Relative to White families, Black families have been described as relying on extended social networks to compensate for other social and economic disadvantages. The presence or absence of supportive social networks should be especially relevant to young couples entering marriage, but to date there has been little effort to describe the social networks of comparable Black and White newlyweds. The current study addressed this gap by drawing on interviews with 57 first-married newlyweds from low-income communities to compare the composition and structure of Black and White couples' duocentric social networks. The results indicated that low-income Black couples entered marriage at a social disadvantage relative to White couples, with more family relationships but fewer positive relationships and fewer sources of emotional support (for wives), fewer connections to married individuals, and fewer shared relationships between spouses. Black couples' relative social disadvantages persisted even when various economic and demographic variables were controlled.

Do men value physical attractiveness in a mate more than women? Scientists in numerous disciplines believe that they do, but recent research using speed-dating paradigms suggests that males and females are equally influenced by physical attractiveness when choosing potential mates. Nevertheless, the premise of the current work is that sex differences in the importance of physical attractiveness are most likely to emerge in research on long-term relationships. Accordingly, the current work drew from 4 independent, longitudinal studies to examine sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for trajectories of marital satisfaction. In all 4 studies, both partners' physical attractiveness was objectively rated at baseline, and both partners reported their marital satisfaction up to 8 times over the first 4 years of marriage. Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive husband. Most importantly, a direct test indicated that partner physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands' satisfaction than predicting wives' satisfaction. These findings strengthen support for the idea that sex differences in self-reported preferences for physical attractiveness do have implications for long-term relationship outcomes.

Developing programs to support low-income married couples requires an accurate understanding of the challenges they face. To address this question, we assessed the salience and severity of relationship problems by asking 862 Black, White, and Latino newlywed spouses (N = 431 couples) living in low-income neighborhoods to (a) free list their 3 biggest sources of disagreement in the marriage, and (b) rate the severity of the problems appearing on a standard relationship problem inventory. Comparing the 2 sources of information revealed that, although relational problems (e.g., communication and moods) were rated as severe on the inventory, challenges external to the relationship (e.g., children) were more salient in the free listing task. The pattern of results is robust across couples of varying race/ethnicity, parental status, and income levels. We conclude that efforts to strengthen marriages among low-income couples may be more effective if they address not only relational problems, but also couples' external stresses by providing assistance with child care, finances, or job training.