This book should be of interest to scholars, researchers, students, and
practitioners alike. Scholars, researchers, and students of personal
relationship development will recognize in this book the first serious
attempt in over 40 years to do a large-scale, longitudinal study of
premarital factors that predict premarital breakup and marital quality;
they should also appreciate our attempt to develop a theoretical
rationale for predicted paths and to test those paths with the best
available statistical tools. Practitioners-while generally not as
interested in the intricacies of the statistical results-will find much
that is useful to them as they help individuals and couples make
decisions about their intimate relationships, their readiness for
marriage, and how to increase the probability for marital success.
Teachers, family life educators, premarital counselors, and clergy will
find helpful our "principles for practice," particularly as described in
Chapter 9, as they teach and counsel couples in any premarital
situation. My interest in the development of relationships from
premarital to marital probably began when I got married in 1972 and
started to notice all of the characteristics my wife and I brought from
our respective families and how our "new beginning" as a married couple
was in many ways the continuation of our premarital relationship, only
more refined and more intense. My professional interest began when I did
my doctoral dissertation in 198 1 on premarital predictors of early
marital satisfaction (the results of that study are reported in Chapter
8).
