Complex marital paradigms: divergence between the importance of getting married and being married

Abstract

Marital paradigm theory (MPT) asserts that societal and cultural norms and values contribute to marital beliefs. The current research examines a tenet of MPT that marital salience – a belief about the importance of getting married – and marital centrality – a belief about the importance or weight assigned to the spousal role once married – are related but distinct concepts such that individuals can diverge in their endorsement of each (for example, highly endorse one but not the other). Data from an online, anonymous survey of 4,060 emerging adults were used to group participants into a typology of low salience-low centrality, high salience-high centrality, low salience-high centrality, and high salience-low centrality. Groups were compared across background characteristics and marital meaning beliefs. Several patterns of differences among predictors were identified and discussed in the context of how the high salience-low centrality group compared with the other groups. Overall findings were consistent with MPT.