Predicting Marital Satisfaction from Ideal and Actual Maternal Roles

This study analyzed marital satisfaction of husbands and wives as a function of the ideal and actual gender roles that they reported. As predicted, the interaction of ideal versus actual roles for wives as reported by the husbands was significant for both husbands and wives, but, contrary to our expectations, the interaction of wives' ideal and actual roles as reported by wives did not predict marital satisfaction for either set of spouses. The results agree, however, with previous research in which husbands' variables have been associated more strongly with marital outcomes than have wives' variables.