Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Coming Together: A Perspective on Relationships across the Life Span
- 2 Relationships as Outcomes and Contexts
- 3 Child-Parent Relationships
- 4 A Dynamic Ecological Systems Perspective on Emotion Regulation Development within the Sibling Relationship Context
- 5 Romantic and Marital Relationships
- 6 Close Relationships across the Life Span: Toward a Theory of Relationship Types
- 7 Friendship across the Life Span: Reciprocity in Individual and Relationship Development
- 8 The Consequential Stranger: Peripheral Relationships across the Life Span
- 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span
- 10 Social Support and Physical Health across the Life Span: Socioemotional Influences
- 11 Social Cognition and Social Relationships
- 12 Dyadic Fits and Transactions in Personality and Relationships
- 13 Relational Competence across the Life Span
- 14 Social Motivation across the Life Span
- 15 A Lifetime of Relationships Mediated by Technology
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- References
5 - Romantic and Marital Relationships
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Coming Together: A Perspective on Relationships across the Life Span
- 2 Relationships as Outcomes and Contexts
- 3 Child-Parent Relationships
- 4 A Dynamic Ecological Systems Perspective on Emotion Regulation Development within the Sibling Relationship Context
- 5 Romantic and Marital Relationships
- 6 Close Relationships across the Life Span: Toward a Theory of Relationship Types
- 7 Friendship across the Life Span: Reciprocity in Individual and Relationship Development
- 8 The Consequential Stranger: Peripheral Relationships across the Life Span
- 9 Stress in Social Relationships: Coping and Adaptation across the Life Span
- 10 Social Support and Physical Health across the Life Span: Socioemotional Influences
- 11 Social Cognition and Social Relationships
- 12 Dyadic Fits and Transactions in Personality and Relationships
- 13 Relational Competence across the Life Span
- 14 Social Motivation across the Life Span
- 15 A Lifetime of Relationships Mediated by Technology
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- References
Summary
According to the hierarchical model of love, Lee's (1973) love styles may be subdivided into passionate and companionate love. From the perspective of life-span theory of control that differentiates selective and compensatory control, new insights on the development of love styles are derived. The goal of partnership formation depends on age-graded opportunity structures. Age-normative factors influence the chances to fulfill tasks with respect to the initiation and maintenance of a partnership. Passionate love is more easily realized in early than in late adulthood. In later adulthood, disengagement from goals related to passionate love and increased emphasis on companionate love are expected. A review of empirical findings tends to support these assumptions.
Hardly anywhere is the rivalry between lay insights and scientific knowledge as strong as in the area of romantic and marital relationships. We all know or expect to know from our everyday experience what this kind of relationship means. We have our personal insights and implicit theories about what characterizes a successful marital relationship and about the conditions under which a romantic relationship is formed. For example, people tend to equate marital relationship with romantic love. In addition, they assume that romantic love emerges immediately after the first contact has been established (love at first sight; Averill, 1985).
Other implicit assumptions refer to the development of romantic and marital relationships across time. From self-observation we are convinced that love changes over time. We feel that a personal relationship has developed somewhat across, say, five or ten years.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Growing TogetherPersonal Relationships Across the Life Span, pp. 103 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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