MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Marriage and Gender Role Expectations in College Aged Students

Jeremy Heyden

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Illinois State University

Spring, 2015

Under the Direction of Dr. Susan Sprecher

In Fulfillment of Senior Experience (SOC 300)

For Questions and comments, contact the author at: Jaheyde@ilstu.edu

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

ABSTRACT
The current research surveyed college aged students about their perceptions of what
marriage will be like along with what their views are on future gender roles. This research was
conducted with 66 non-married college age students (22 males, 44 females) from around the
United States. Previous research (Sabatelli and Pearce 1987) found that marriage expectations
are usually very high for younger people; marriage expectations can be defined by rating
important particular attributes related to relationships such as love, privacy, and communication.
Also in previous research (Sweeney 2002), it was found that gender roles followed a more
classical view in the past that view being a male bread winner and a female stay at home
parent. The current study was expanded on to include the current generations views on
marriage expectations and gender roles and how they are different between males and females.
There were two hypotheses examined: 1) Females will be found to have higher marriage
expectations than males will 2) Females are more likely to have a modern view on gender roles
in marriage compared to males. Participants views were measured through items assessing
relative importance of relationship attributes as well as beliefs on what the primary role was for
males and females which were measured through statements accessing relative agreement.
Hypothesis 1 was rejected due to no significant differences between males and females but it was
found that many individual attributes were positively correlated with each other. Hypothesis 2
found some significance in the form of positive correlations between males and females views
on male headed households but no significant differences in any other item concerning gender
roles.

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Marriage is a social practice that has changed over generations (Sweeney 2002). Our
expectations of what marriage will be like are directly influenced by our experiences and
personal attitudes towards marriage in accordance with Social Exchange Theory (Emerson
1976). Everyday people get married and everybody has expectations of what marriage will be
like, whether it be exciting, full of romance, or having fun with your best friend in the world.
Expectations of marriage are worthy of being investigated because research examines the current
generations views of marriage while comparing views between gender. This research also looks
at the different views between genders concerning their views on marital roles. Researching the
current views of marriage in the current generations, can allow us to get a better understanding of
the current views and attitudes of marriage and marital roles are. The purpose of this study is to
see whether there are gender differences in expectations of marriage and views on marital roles.
THEORY
Social Exchange Theory looks at how past experiences and observations form peoples
conceptions of everyday life (Emerson 1976). This is to say when looking at marriage
expectations we are using past knowledge, experiences, and observations to form our
conceptions and expectations of what marriage should be like and what everyone feels it should
be like. According to the Social Exchange Theory on relationships, individuals are influenced by
the collective which means everyone obtains knowledge from exchanges between parties,
meaning that things people observe and learn about from their friends, parents, strangers, or
siblings influence peoples conceptions (Cropanzano et al. 2005). The social exchange from
person to person is a big portion from which individuals base their perceptions and expectations,
especially in regards to relationships, because people learn from each other and the exchange of
information gives insight into other peoples experiences. For example, when thinking of

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marriage, our parents might be the first to come to mind and we observe their relationship daily.
With those observations we build our own beliefs and conceptions from those observations.
In Social Exchange theory there are different concepts that help us pick and choose what
we take from our social interactions in accordance to what we think is valuable (Emerson 1976).
Rewards and costs are key to this in that we use gained knowledge that we feel will reward us in
the future with minimalized cost. Rewards can be viewed as something that offers positive
reinforcement, such as a good outcome of a situation, whereas a cost can be viewed as a
negative reinforcement, such as a loss of time that could have been used otherwise (Emerson
1976). For example, in a relationship, a reward might be a happy spouse coming from showing
unconditional love to them, while a cost might be an unhappy spouse from ignoring them.
Comparison level can be defined as an expectation of what we think we deserve in a relationship
based on past experiences. An example of comparison level that Emerson (1976) used was a
child receiving an allowance, the child receives a certain amount of money for a specified
behavior or duty the child then knows that a certain behavior or duty has value and uses it as a
bases for other behaviors or duties so that a possible furthering on specific behaviors will yield a
higher reward. An example of comparison level in regards to marriage expectations can be when
in a past relationship, partners communicated their feelings and thoughts effectively and in turn
led to a happier relationship, so it can be said that with good communication between partners it
can be expected that there will be a happier relationship.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Relationships and marriage are key social concepts that many people take part in. How
people view marriage and marital life is socially constructed by observations of others and by
personal experiences regarding the topic in accordance with social exchange theory (Emerson

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

1976). It has been found that having positive or negative expectations on a topic leads to a sort of
self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, when you have negative expectations, behaviors will arise
that influence or confirm those negative expectations; the same is true for positive expectations
(McNulty and Karney, 2004). An example of this would be when a woman is expecting to be
rejected by her partner, the woman tended to engage in behaviors that predicted greater negative
feelings (McNulty and Karney 2004), as such in a self-destructive fashion.
Age and commitment are key factors that showed differences in expectations between
males and females in regards to expectation levels of marriage (Sabatelli and Pearce 1986). The
purpose of this study was to see how marriage expectations affect marital outcomes. The sample
for the study completed by Sabatelli and Pearce (1986) consisted of 301 married individuals
from Wisconsin. The researchers used a scale that they created called The Expectation Level
Index which measured what the participant, at a particular point in time, feels he or she
deserves or realistically expects from a relationship (Sabatelli 311, 1986). More specifically the
expectation level index looked at different attributes and their levels of importance such as,
among many others, companionship, trust, sexual activity, and time together (Sabatelli et al.
1986). An important finding from this research was that females who are younger have higher
expectations of relationships than older females who have been in a long term relationship. Other
findings from this research were that expectation levels are higher for relationship items such as
trust, mutual respect and commitment, which means that people felt they deserved greater
amounts of these from their relationship. Although things like trust and love were higher,
surprisingly it was found that people had lower expectation levels for time spent together,
privacy, and communication which means people did not realistically expect as much from those
aspects in their relationship.

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

When thinking of marriage, people have personal expectations of marriage whether they
be positive or negative expectations (McNulty and Karney, 2004).With either positive or
negative personal expectations, the question of whether a future marriage will actually pan out
arises. The purpose of the McNulty and Karney (2004) study was to see how marital satisfaction
changed over the first 4 years of a marriage and how marriage expectations and attributes
affected marital satisfaction. In research done by McNulty and Karney (2004), the sample
analyzed consisted of 82 newlywed couples who were in the first 6 months of their first marriage
and were contacted again at 6 month intervals for 4 years. The study included questionnaires that
were answered by both partners at each 6 month interval that were in regards to marital
satisfaction, measures of expectations for the relationship and the partner, as well as relationship
attributions (McNulty et al. 2004). It has been found that positive expectations of marriage have
in fact led to greater marital satisfaction over time but, negative expectations of marriage have
led to more stable marital satisfaction over time in comparison (McNulty et al. 2004). It was
also found that when couples have similar positive expectations and focus on goals together,
marital satisfaction was greater. On the opposite side, when couples did not have similar marital
expectations conflict would arise. However conflict could lead to more constructive goals to
create more stable marital satisfaction (McNulty et al. 2004). An important finding in this study
was that spouses who had positive attributions tended to also have positive expectations for their
relationships and for their partners which this supports the claim towards a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
A study by Waller and McLanahan (2005) had findings that supported McNultys and
Karneys (2004) previous research. Waller and McLanahan (2005) focused on couple-level data
in studying 3,700 unmarried parents and their children from 20 U.S. cities with populations over

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200,000. A key point to their sample was that in order to get couple level data, they restricted
their sample to unmarried couples who were romantically involved with one another at the time
of the interview and were also both mothers and fathers. The families chosen were also deemed
fragile families due to divorces that included the presence of welfare or child support (Waller
et al. 2005). Data were collected by conducting interviews of both partners independently.
Interviews consisted of basic background information along with personal feelings towards
things like gender beliefs and conflict. An important finding from this research was that when
partners framed their futures similarly, as well as had positive expectations, they were more
capable of maintaining their relationships (Segrin et al. 2002). This study also supports the
previous notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy concerning positive expectations leading to more
stable relationships.
Another source that people use to gain personal insight into what marriage will be like is
the media. Media is being defined more specifically to television and television genres that
displayed romantic and relationship behaviors. Generally we can see relationship aspects strictly
just from genres of television media such as romantic-comedies or romance and in some of
these genres lies an idealistic view of what marriage and relationships should be like (Segrin and
Nabi 2002). The purpose of this study was to explain high divorce rates due to people having
idealistic marriage expectations going into their marriage that originate from media in the form
of television. The study consisted of 285 undergraduate students who were enrolled in
communication courses at a large southwestern U.S. university. The participants were asked to
complete a questionnaire in class, some in a small laboratory setting, which asked open ended
essay type questions describing hypothetical marriages. Participants completed questions on
three scales that each capture aspects of marriage expectations; fantasy rumination about

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marriage, idealized expectations for intimacy within the marriage, and a passionate romanticized
love style (Segrin et al. 2002). In a study completed by Segrin and Nabi (2002), it was found that
the portrayal of idealized relationships and marriage on television have led to higher and
unrealistic marriage expectations. Segrin and Nabi (2002) found strong associations between
marriage expectations and marital goals in response to media influence. An important finding in
this research was that overall television viewing was found to not show significant influence on
marriage expectations but, genre specific television viewing, such as romantic or soap operas,
was found to be a good predictor of idealistic marriage expectations (Segrin et al. 2002). This
study sheds light into another study by Payne, Dickerson, and Everette (2013) that may be used
to confirm or add to where the origins of personal marriage expectations may come from.
The purpose of a study completed by Payne, Dickerson, and Everette (2013) was to see
how education levels affected expectations of marital life and what path, whether it be career,
furthering education, or pursing a family, was taken by female participants. The research used a
sample of 426 undergraduate students from Washington, D.C. It was found in this study that
educational levels have affected marital expectations and it has been found that higher
educational levels have led to higher expectations of married life. In the recent research done by
Payne, Dickerson, and Everette (2013), it was found that higher educational attainment seemed
to be a factor in how African-American women viewed childbirth, marriage and career in regards
to attitudes in choosing one of these paths without consequence of negative connotations. It was
also found that with higher educational levels there was a greater likelihood that people would
get married and continue with their career compared to getting married and quitting their career.
In marriage there is a division of power between the couple; this means that each partner
has his or her own specific marital roles that they follow. In past generations, typical marital

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roles consisted of the male having a career and providing for the family while the female took
care of the children and house (Sweeney 2002). In present times marital roles have changed to
include both the male and female partaking in either of the past roles such as a male who stays at
home and takes care of the house and children while the female has a career and provides for the
family. There has also been a more common division where both the male and female have a
career and both provide for the family (Sweeney 2002). In research completed by Hiller and
Philliber (1986) it was found that, in researching 489 Midwestern married couples, perceptions
of partners expectations significantly influence spouses role performances and the husbands
expectations are powerful predictors of performance, indicating that male prerogatives in marital
role bargaining are still quite strong (Hiller et al. 1986). It was also found that couples agreed
that childcare and money management should be shared responsibilities, although, to the
contrary it was also found that about a third of the participants agreed that housework was the
wifes job while just under half agreed that income earning is the husbands job (Hiller et al.
1986).
Research has shown consistent findings in what sources we use to develop our marriage
expectations as well as the implications of previous marriage expectations for future or current
relationships. In the previous discussed literature the common theme is different levels of
marriage expectations and different views of marital roles, and between those themes there are
comparisons being drawn between male and females. What is also discussed is what types of
expectations we have of marital roles with a key distinctions between a modern style, that
being both partners being a breadwinner or the male being a stay at home parent with a female
breadwinner, as compared to a classical style, that being a female stay at home parent and a
male breadwinner. Another key theme was a type of self-fulfilling prophecy where if partners

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

had similar positive expectations of marriage then it was more likely that the relationship would
be more stable whereas if there were negative expectations then it was more likely that
relationship would be less stable.
PURPOSE
Due to the lack of more current research on marriage expectations and gender roles, I
plan to fill the literature gap on the current generations views and expectations of marriage and
marital roles, as well as comparing males and females. My hypothesis is that females have more
positive expectations of marriage than males. I will also be looking at the difference between
males and females expectations of gender roles in marriage comparing between a modern and
classical view of marriage. My secondary hypothesis is that males are more likely to have a
classical view on gender roles in marriage than females will. This research will examine not only
the basic expectations of marriage but also the expectations of gender roles because preference
toward a specific gender also affect expectations of marriage and how people choose their mates
(Eagly, Eastwick and Schmidt 2009).
METHOD
Sample
The sample consisted of an original sample of 74 participants but an actual sample, due to
non-completions, of 66 participants was used. Of the 66 participants, about 33% were males and
about 67% were females. Participants were college aged students from Midwestern Universities.
The mean age of the participants was 21 years old with a standard deviation of 2.26. The ages
ranged from 19 to 30 years old. Of the sample, 1.5% were freshman, 21.2% sophomores, 36.4%
juniors, 30.3% seniors, 1.5% graduate students, and 9.1% were not in college. Considering

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relationship status of the participants, 33.3% were single, 16.7% were casually dating, 45.5%
were seriously dating, 0% were engaged, and 4.5% were married.
Procedure
Surveys were available through a link that was emailed to introductory sociology classes,
and a research team in sociology at Illinois State University. These classes were selected by
convenience and availability of students that would be in attendance. Students from one class
received extra credit for their completion of the survey, but an alternative assignment was
accessible for those who did not wish to participate. Surveys were also available through a link
posted on the authors personal Facebook account. Participation in the online survey was
anonymous and voluntary. At the start of the survey the informed consent, which followed IRB
regulations, was provided. It was explained to participants that they did not have to take the
survey and that they could stop at any time or choose to skip any question without penalty.
Participants were asked to answer a series of questions about their personal experiences and
opinions regarding marriage, marital roles, parents marital experience, and their own personal
expectations of marriage.
Measurements
In order to measure our variables, I used a combination of unpublished and published
items.
Expectations of marriage. To measure expectations of marriage, I used Sabatellis and
Pearces (1986) Expectation level index (ELI). The scale explores comparison levels which
represented what a person, at a particular point in time, feels he or she deserves or realistically
expects from a relationship. The ELI items were used to reflect concern with the various

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relationship dimensions proposed to be related to peoples overall assessments of their

relationships. This was measured in my research using a Likert scale of importance that ranged
from 1 being not very important to 7 being very important; participants used this response scale
to rate each of the relationship attributes. High composite scores on these show that attributes
commonly found in marriage, such as love, privacy, and communication (Pearce et al. 1986),
were rated as very important, thus leading to having higher expectations and more of a demand
on the relationship to uphold those attributes. The Cronbachs alpha for the ELI was found to be .
822 which is considered acceptable reliability.
Marital roles. Marital roles were defined as roles that a husband or wife take on such as
the role of being the bread winner which includes having a career and providing for the family.
The other role was defined as the stay at home parent which includes taking care of children
and the home. Marital roles were measured by the participants answers on a Likert scale that
ranged from 1 being strongly disagree to 7 being strongly agree on matters pertaining to marital
roles such as What kind of marital roles do you expect in your future marriage? With the
questions on marital roles, it was also measured which view the participants supported, those
views being either a classical or modern view on marital roles. A classical view on marital
roles was defined as a bread winner husband and a stay at home parent wife. These items of
classical and modern views were developed from my own knowledge with support from
research completed by Hiller and Philliber (1986). The classical view was compared to a
modern view on marital roles which was defined as both the husband and wife being the
bread winner or the husband being a stay at home parent while the wife is the sole bread
winner. High composite scores show that a modern view on marital roles is being supported

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while low scores show a classical view on marital roles being supported. The Cronbachs alpha
for the composite score was found to be .643.
RESULTS
Preliminary Results
In this section, I will be summarizing how participants responded to the key variables
overall. The key variables are gender roles and marriage expectations. Gender roles looked into
perceived gender roles for the participants future marriage and participants rated on a 7-point
scale if they agreed or disagreed about the primary gender roles for males and females. The
results in table one for gender roles are shown before the reverse-scored items were recorded.
The higher the participants scored on the reverse-scored items, the more they disagreed with the
statement. Marriage expectations looked at participants ratings of marriage attributes based on a
7-point scale of how important they would find each attribute to be in their future marriage.
The composite score for perceived male and female headed household had a mean of
2.93, with a standard deviation of 1.59, which showed that participants did not agree or disagree
that the primary roles for a male was the breadwinner while the primary role for a female was
the stay at home parent. A high score on marital roles indicated a classical view on marital
roles while low scores indicated a modern view on marital roles. The composite score for all of
the marriage expectation attributes had a mean of 6.44, with a standard deviation of .72, which is
relatively high. A high score on marriage expectations indicated higher marriage expectations.
As seen in table one, participants rated marriage attributes with high importance for all
the marriage attributes except for the attribute privacy. All of the traits, except for privacy, had
means above 6.00 with the highest response possible being a 7, while the attribute of privacy had

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

a mean of only 5.15. This section displayed that participants found most marriage attributes to be
of high importance except for privacy. Shown in table two, it was also found that all attributes in
marriage expectations, except for privacy, had strong positive correlations with each other, which
indicates that people with a higher importance on mutual respect also had a higher importance on
all other attributes, except privacy.
Also in table one, participants rated perceived female headed, with a mean of 2.50 out of
7, lower than perceived male headed, with a mean of 3.36 out of 7. This showed that perceived
male headed households had higher agreement rates than perceived female headed households.
The composite score for perceived male and female headed had a mean of 2.93. The composite
score was lower which indicated that a modern view on marital roles was shown by the
participants. Shown in table three, it was also found that perceived male headed and perceived
female headed had a strong positive correlation with each other. This positive correlation
indicates that people who disagreed with the primary male gender role being the breadwinner
also disagreed that the primary female gender role was the stay at home parent. Fathers
perceived role was rated the highest by participants with a mean of 4.18 out of a total of 5,
whereas mothers perceived role had a mean of 3.00 out of 5. This area showed that participants
disagreed with females and males primary marital roles being a stay at home parent and the
breadwinner respectively which would be considered a modern view on marital roles. This
area also showed that participants were found to have a higher degree of a breadwinner father
as well as a higher degree of a stay at home mother.
Table two did show significant correlations that were positive between each of the
attributes which did prove that most relationship attributes did correlate with each other. This
correlation was significant because it showed that each of the attributes were rated similarly and

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depended upon each other. These positive correlations showed that if one attribute was rated with
high importance than all other attributes were rated with high importance as well, as well as the
opposite of this, if one attribute was rated with low importance than all other correlated attributes
were also rated with low importance.
Test of Hypothesis 1: Gender in Marriage Expectations
In hypothesis one, I hypothesized that females are more likely to have positive
expectations of marriage than males, and especially for related attributes such as love, privacy,
and mutual respect. To test this hypothesis I did an independent t-test to compare males and
females on how they rated each attribute under marriage expectations. Table four shows the
results of this test. No significant difference was found between the two groups on the composite
score. The composite score mean for males was 6.26 with a standard deviation of .87, and
females had a mean of 6.53 with a standard deviation of .63. Furthermore, no significant
differences were found between males and females on any of the individual items as seen in table
four. Hypothesis one was found to be rejected after completing the independent t-test.
Test of Hypothesis 2: Marital Roles
Hypothesis two was comparing males and females on expectations of gender roles in
marriage between a classical and modern view of marriage. My hypothesis was that females are
more likely to have a modern view on gender roles in marriage compared to males. To test this
hypothesis I again conducted an independent t-test comparing how males versus females
responded to primary marital roles for males and females. A high score on this indicates that the
participants agreed with the statements of the males primary marital role being the
breadwinner and the female primary marital role being the stay at home parent. Table five

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shows the results of this independent t-test. The composite score mean for males was 3.41 with a
standard deviation of 1.62, and the females had a mean of 2.69 with a standard deviation of 1.54.
Although this was not found to be significant, this did show that both males and females
disagreed with both statements and males had a higher agreement than females did on both
statements.
One individual item was found to be significantly different between the two groups, that
being male participants found the primary gender role for males was the breadwinner with
male participants having a mean of 4.32 and a standard deviation of 2.06, compared to females
who had a mean of 2.89 with a standard deviation of 1.94 which is saying that females disagreed
that the primary gender role for males was the breadwinner while males neither agreed or
disagreed that the males primary marital role was the breadwinner. Females scored higher than
males which means that females were found to have more modern views of gender roles in
marriage. After running the independent t-test, hypothesis two was supported
Additional, Exploratory Analyses
The last hypothesis is an exploratory hypothesis. The hypothesis was that as age
increases, marriage expectations will increase. I conducted a correlational, bivariate, test to
analyze this hypothesis. It was found that age and marriage expectations were negatively
correlated and did show significance. The data showed a significant negative correlation between
the two variables which showed that as age increased, marriage expectations actually decreased.
Looking at this in another way, as age decreased, marriage expectations would actually increase.
After analyzing the data it was found that the data did not support my hypothesis therefor
hypothesis three was rejected. Although my hypothesis was rejected, the data did show valuable
information in that age does have a significant effect on marriage expectations.

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DISCUSSION
The purpose of this research was to gain insight on what the younger generations
attitudes were on marriage expectations and gender roles in marriage. My main hypothesis was
that females are more likely to have positive expectations of marriage than males will, and
specifically related attributes such as love, privacy, and mutual respect. Along with my main
hypothesis, my secondary hypothesis looked at marital roles in marriage to see whether a
classical or a modern view on marital roles was found in the current generation. With both of
these hypotheses, I also compared views on marriage expectations and marital roles between the
genders and how they are different or similar from each other. I used a questionnaire made up of
scales that measured importance of attributes related to relationships, taken from the ELI
(Sabatelli et al. 1986) as well as my own scales for marital roles that measured agreement on
statements regarding primary marital roles for males and females. Most results were found to not
be significant, although both scales did show significant correlations between attributes as well
as between male and female headed households.
Implications
In the data that I gathered, it was found that there were no gender differences in marriage
expectations, but findings did show that many items under marriage expectations were rated with
high importance related to marriage expectations but, similar to the study done by Sabatelli and
Pearce (1986), privacy was rated lower than all the rest of the items such as love and trust.
Privacy, among others, was one of the key items that was found to be rated with lower
importance, compared to other attributes, by participants in Sabatellis and Pearces (1986)
research which clearly relates to my findings in that privacy had the lowest importance compared
to all other variables.

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In analyzing data for my secondary hypothesis, my research found that both males and
females had lower scores concerning marital roles which shows that they did not believe in a
classical view on marriage. A classical view was defined as a male breadwinner and a female
stay at home parent which was disagreed with. Thus a more modern view was taken; a modern
view was defined as a male and female breadwinner or a male stay at home parent. The
findings showed that there was not a gender difference; these findings were not consistent with
the findings in Hillers and Phillibers (1986) research in that they found that a third of their
participants agreed with a classical view on marital roles.
Strengths
The main strength to my research was the fact that I was filling the gap on the current
generational views. Much of the previous research was completed with prior generations when
views may have been quite different from how they are now. For example, Sabatellis and
Pearces (1986) research was completed in the 1980s. Another strength to my research was that I
looked at non-married college aged students, whereas most of the past research focused on
married or newlywed couples. Previous research, such as Hillers and Phillibers (1986) research
or McNultys and Karneys (2004) research, used couple level samples in which they looked at
samples that included newlyweds and married couples in their data. The previous research that
did include college aged students, although similar to my sample, used college aged students but,
in Segrins and Nabis (2002) research, the sample was restricted to undergraduates who were
enrolled in a communications course. My sample looked at college aged participants in general
and did not restrict them by an enrolled class or particular area.

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Limitations
Although my sample using college aged students was a strength, it also did have a
weakness. My sample was gathered by method of convenience which means I used a sample of
people that was relatively easy to find and did not have special restrictions, except for age. A
convenience sample makes it more difficult to generalize the findings to a broader area such as to
the rest of the world. Another problem with my sample was that it was relatively small and
lacked diversity. There was an imbalanced gender ratio; my sample had over twice the number of
females than males. Because the sample had a heavy imbalance in gender ratio, it gave a low
reliability to my findings due to the sole fact that more female responses outweighed the few
male responses. A last limitation I found with my research was that it could have been longer and
more in depth. With the few questions I asked, it was difficult to pull significant findings from
the results I was given. In addition, participants may have answered with socially desirable
responses.
Future Research
For future research, I would suggest first that a larger sample should be used. I would
also recommend doing a longitudinal study to see how marriage expectations and marital role
views change over time and how they ultimately play out, because as social exchange theory
states (Emerson 1976), our views change over time and are influenced by different situations.
Something else that should be looked at are the origins of the marriage expectations and marital
role views, such as from different types of media like television. Segrins and Nabis (2002)
research looked into television media and how it affects views, but they restricted it to particular
genres of television such as romantic or soap operas whereas in the present generation there are

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many more influential television genres that expose the current generation to different views and
beliefs such as reality television.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, the limitations outweighed the strengths of my research. Many of my
findings were deemed not significant which led to rejecting my hypotheses. Although my results
were consistent with findings of some of the previous research done on the topic, the findings
were not significant enough to make a connection between variables. There are many areas that
this research could be improved upon to eliminate its limitations and provide more significant
responses. The purpose of this research was to fill the gap on what the current generational views
are about marriage while comparing the views between males and females. Even though this
research did not have significant results, it was found that there were no differences between
males and females views which is still a valid finding. There is still room for clear
improvements that may yield better data that can be significant and used practically too generally
apply the rest of the population.

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Marriage: Should Couples Expect the Best or Brace for the Worst? Journal of
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MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

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MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Table 1
Descriptive Results for the Dependent Variables for Total Sample
Composite Score and Individual Items

Mean

St. Dev.

Perceived Male Headed

3.36

2.08

Perceived Female Headed

2.50

1.60

Composite Score of the above 2 items

2.93

1.59

Fathers Perceived Role

4.18

1.00

Mothers Perceived Role

3.00

1.08

Mutual Respect

6.80

.68

Love

6.74

.73

Privacy

5.15

1.82

Agreement on Lifestyle

6.42

.96

Trust

6.79

.71

Partners Willingness to Listen

6.65

.85

Effective Communication

6.77

.70

Sharing of household responsibilities

6.24

1.23

Composite score

6.44

.72

Gender Roles

Marriage Expectations

Note: Expectation items were based on a 7-point scale. Fathers and Mothers Perceived Role
were based on a 5-point scale.

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Table 2
Correlation Results for the Expectation Items and Composite Score for Total Sample
Items

Marriage Expectations
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Mutual Respect
.91** .16
Love
.12
Privacy
Agreement on Lifestyle
Trust
Partners Willingness to Listen
Effective Communication
Sharing of household responsibilities
Composite score
Note: ** = p < .01

.54** .83** .83** .97**

.58** .81** .92** .94**
.20
.18
.18
.15
.65** .59** .60**
.82** .83**
.90**

.50**
.47**
.40**
.57**
.48**
.55**
.51**

.83**
.83**
.54**
.76**
.82**
.86**
.86**
.76**

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Table 3
Correlation Results for the Gender Role Items for Total Sample
Items

Gender Roles
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Perceived Male Headed

Perceived Female Headed
Fathers Perceived Role
Mothers Perceived Role
Total composite of perceived
Male and Female Headed
Note: ** = p < .01

.49** -.11
-.01

Table 4
Sex Differences in Marriage Expectations: Results of Independent T-Tests

.08
-.07
-.22

.90**
.82**
.08
.01

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Mean (SD) for Males

Mean (SD) for Females

(n = 22)

(n = 44)

Mutual Respect

6.59 (.96)

6.91 (.47)

-1.47

Love

6.45 (1.01)

6.89 (.49)

-1.90

Privacy

4.86 (1.96)

5.30 (1.75)

-.90

Agreement
on Lifestyle

6.38 (1.20)

6.44 (.83)

-.24

Trust

6.64 (.95)

6.86 (.55)

-1.03

Partners
Willingness to Listen

6.36 (1.09)

6.80 (.67)

-1.70

Effective
Communication

6.55 (.96)

6.89 (.49)

-1.56

Sharing of
Household responsibilities

6.23 (1.15)

6.25 (1.28)

-.070

Composite Scores
6.26 (.87)
6.53 (.63)
-1.48
_____________________________________________________________________________

MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Table 5
Sex Differences in Gender Roles: Results of Independent T-Tests
Mean (SD) for Males

Mean (SD) for Females

(n = 22)

(n = 44)

Total Perceived Male Headed

4.32 (2.06)

2.89 (1.94)

-2.77**

Total Perceived Female Headed

2.50 (1.66)

2.50 (1.59)

.00

Composite Score for Above Items

3.41 (1.62)

2.69 (1.54)

1.75

Total Perceived Fathers Role

4.00 (1.16)

4.28 (.91)

Total Perceived Mothers Role

3.05 (1.17)

2.98 (1.02)

Note: ** = p < .01

-1.07
.24