MARRIAGE EXPECTATIONS

Marriage and Gender Role Expectations in College Aged Students

Jeremy Heyden

Department of Sociology and AnthropologyIllinois State University

Spring, 2015

Under the Direction of Dr. Susan SprecherIn Fulfillment of Senior Experience (SOC 300)

For Questions and comments, contact the author at: Jaheyde@ilstu.eduABSTRACTThe 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 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. THEORYSocial 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 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 REVIEWRelationships 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 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.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 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 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 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 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.PURPOSEDue 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).METHODSampleThe 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 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.ProcedureSurveys 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.MeasurementsIn 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 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 while low scores show a classical view on marital roles being supported. The Cronbachs alpha for the composite score was found to be .643.RESULTSPreliminary ResultsIn 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 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 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 ExpectationsIn 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 RolesHypothesis 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 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 supportedAdditional, Exploratory AnalysesThe 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.DISCUSSIONThe 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.ImplicationsIn 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.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.StrengthsThe 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.

LimitationsAlthough 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 ResearchFor 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 many more influential television genres that expose the current generation to different views and beliefs such as reality television. CONCLUSIONTo 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.

REFERENCESCropanzano, Russell and Marie Mitchell. 2005. Social Exchange Theory.Encyclopedia ofManagement Theory.Eagly, Alice H., Paul W. Eastwick, and Mary Johannesen-Schmidt. 2009. Possible Selves inMarital Roles: The Impact of the Anticipated Division of Labor on the Mate Preferencesof Women and Men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin35(4):40314.Emerson, Richard M. 1976. Social Exchange Theory. Annual Review of Sociology2(1):335-62.Hiller, Dana V. and William W. Philliber. 1986. The Division of Labor in ContemporaryMarriage: Expectations, Perceptions, and Performance.Social Problems33(3):191201.McNulty, James K. and Benjamin R. Karney. 2004. Positive Expectations in the Early Years ofMarriage: Should Couples Expect the Best or Brace for the Worst?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology86(5):72943.Parham-Payne, Wanda, Bette J. Dickerson, and Tekisha D. Everette. 2013. Trading the PicketFence: Perceptions of Childbirth, Marriage, and Career.The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare85104.Sabatelli, R. M. and J. Pearce. 1986. Exploring Marital Expectations. Journal of Social andPersonal Relationships3(3):30721.Segrin, Chris and Robin L. Nabi. 2002. Does Television Viewing Cultivate UnrealisticExpectations About Marriage?Journal of Communication52(2):24763.Sweeney, Megan M. 2002. Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting EconomicFoundations of Marriage.American Sociological Review67(1).Waller, Maureen R. and Sara S. McLanahan. 2005. His and Her Marriage Expectations:Determinants and Consequences.Journal of Marriage and Family67(1):5367.

Table 1Descriptive Results for the Dependent Variables for Total SampleComposite Score and Individual Items MeanSt. Dev.Gender RolesPerceived Male Headed3.362.08Perceived Female Headed2.501.60Composite Score of the above 2 items2.931.59Fathers Perceived Role4.181.00Mothers Perceived Role3.001.08Marriage ExpectationsMutual Respect6.80.68Love6.74.73Privacy5.151.82Agreement on Lifestyle6.42.96Trust6.79.71Partners Willingness to Listen6.65.85Effective Communication6.77.70Sharing of household responsibilities6.241.23Composite score6.44.72Note: Expectation items were based on a 7-point scale. Fathers and Mothers Perceived Role were based on a 5-point scale.

Table 2Correlation Results for the Expectation Items and Composite Score for Total SampleItems 123456789

Marriage Expectations1. Mutual Respect .91** .16 .54** .83** .83** .97** .50** .83**2. Love .12 .58** .81** .92** .94** .47** .83**3. Privacy .20 .18 .18 .15 .40** .54**4. Agreement on Lifestyle .65** .59** .60** .57** .76**5. Trust .82** .83** .48** .82**6. Partners Willingness to Listen .90** .55** .86**7. Effective Communication .51** .86**8. Sharing of household responsibilities .76**9. Composite scoreNote: ** = p < .01

Table 3Correlation Results for the Gender Role Items for Total SampleItems 12345Gender Roles1. Perceived Male Headed .49** -.11 .08 .90**2. Perceived Female Headed -.01 -.07 .82**3. Fathers Perceived Role -.22 .084. Mothers Perceived Role .015. Total composite of perceived Male and Female HeadedNote: ** = p < .01

Table 4Sex Differences in Marriage Expectations: Results of Independent T-Tests Mean (SD) for MalesMean (SD) for Femalest(n = 22)(n = 44)Mutual Respect6.59 (.96)6.91 (.47) -1.47Love6.45 (1.01)6.89 (.49) -1.90Privacy4.86 (1.96)5.30 (1.75) -.90Agreement 6.38 (1.20)6.44 (.83) -.24on Lifestyle

Trust6.64 (.95)6.86 (.55) -1.03Partners 6.36 (1.09)6.80 (.67) -1.70Willingness to Listen

Effective 6.55 (.96)6.89 (.49) -1.56Communication

Sharing of 6.23 (1.15)6.25 (1.28) -.070Household responsibilities

Composite Scores6.26 (.87)6.53 (.63) -1.48_____________________________________________________________________________

Table 5Sex Differences in Gender Roles: Results of Independent T-Tests Mean (SD) for MalesMean (SD) for Femalest(n = 22)(n = 44)Total Perceived Male Headed4.32 (2.06)2.89 (1.94) -2.77**Total Perceived Female Headed2.50 (1.66)2.50 (1.59) .00Composite Score for Above Items3.41 (1.62)2.69 (1.54)1.75Total Perceived Fathers Role4.00 (1.16)4.28 (.91) -1.07Total Perceived Mothers Role3.05 (1.17)2.98 (1.02) .24

Note: ** = p < .01