Behavioral Companionship in Marriage: A Cross-National Analysis

Abstract

The concept of marital interaction has several different theoretical and operational definitions in the extant literature. Behavioral companionship, consisting of shared activities involving copresence, is the focus of the research presented here. A secondary analysis of a time-budget data set is presented to allow for assessment of the differences in companionship for three nations and the relative effects of work role allocation in the family, parenting, age of the individuals, and the day of the week (weekend or weekday) on the extent of husband-wife companionship in each of these nations. Children were a major factor in reducing marital interaction, while multi-worker families had approximately the same levels of interaction as single-worker families. There was a weekday reduction in time spent together. A curvilinear relationship between age and marital interaction emerged in each national setting. The expectation that the most highly differentiated society would evince the greatest amount of marital companionship was not supported. This study extends past work through the behavioral examination of a large, randomly selected samples of men and women and through the use of a multivariate model. It also provides an empirical report on the relationship between work and family involvement, and suggests directions for future research on marital interaction.