Abstract
M.A.
Of late there has been an accelerated impetus in the study of marriage and its
associated issues. A veritable deluge of research articles are regularly devoted to
the topic, for example Hatfield and Sprecher (1986); Fincham and Bradbury (1987);
Dion and Dion (1993); Kamo (1993). There has also been some recent South
African research on marriage and mate selection, particularly Crous and Pretorius
(1994). New books appear with striking regularity while instruments to measure
aspects of relationships are readily available. These include Hendrick and
Hendrick's Love Attitude Scale, Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and Rubin's
Love Scale (Tzeng, 1993). Relationships, love and marriage are becoming
increasingly measurable and as more questions become answered, researchers
are able to unravel some of the complexity within the field. Adams (1988) looks
back at fifty years of family research to discover that it has become increasingly
scientific despite dealing with so-called "soft" variables like adjustment and
attitudes. When even more elusive constructs like satisfaction, contentment and
love are introduced, social scientists find that the terrain might be uncomfortably
abstract. However, it is anticipated that as this domain, once only the estate of
poets and philosophers becomes steadily more understood, it will bear fruit by
answering questions which can then be profitably applied in many couplecounselling
situations.
The concepts of mate selection, marriage and familial stability are at the heart of
societal functioning. There are a myriad of variables that impact on these
constructs, as is evident from Surra's (1990) decade review. Recent research has
shed some light, albeit theoretical, on the reasons why two people form a marital
dyad. Social scientists are thus slowly building a solid mass of knowledge relating to
the entire process of how and why a couple eventually exist. This goes hand in
hand with contemporary urgency, for the accelerating forces of career,
sociological, psychological and economic pressures play havoc with older
traditional values of stability and permanence in all these domains. Soaring
divorce rates are only one symptom of couples and individuals buckling under
these tremendous pressures. Clearly, whatever can be done to better understand
the choices individuals make in forming marital dyads, can only be regarded as
useful information. In the South African context, this type of research is similarly
required. With the wealth of family and marriage research being done abroad, it is
important to know if this information applies to South African couples. Thus the
primary motivation for the study is to better understand the way South Africans
love.
Lee's (1976) treatise is widely accepted as a valuable model of love. To date no
work appears to have been done using this model in South Africa. The aims of this
study thus are:
To determine if there is any relationship between the various lovestyles and
marital satisfaction for a South African sample.
To examine several contemporary models of love.