14. Marriage in Old Age
Susan Turk Charles and Laura L. Carstensen
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. The last of life, for which the first was made.
—Robert Browning
“Rabbi Ben Ezra”
The common stereotype of old couples is that they are emotionally and romantically lifeless. Indeed, it is against this backdrop that young couples frequently speak of their commitment to keeping the “passion” in their relationships and avoiding the fate of “old married couples.” What happens to marriages that have weathered the storms of early coupledom, the rearing and launching of children, and the negotiations of household tasks and careers? What role does gender play in the lives of men and women who link their mutual fates, intertwine their dreams and aspirations, and pursue joint goals for more than half their lives?
Interestingly, marriage in old age, though understudied, appears to be quite different from the stereotypes noted above and more closely resembles the image conveyed in the Browning quotation that opens this chapter. On average, older couples are happier than younger couples. Even self-described unhappily married older couples state they are happier than they were when they were younger. Older married couples say that they argue less and have fewer marital conflicts than their younger counterparts. Older married couples also take more pleasure in many areas of married life, citing adult children, conversation, and recreational activities as distinct sources of happiness. Old married couples do report that erotic bonds are less central in their lives; friendship instead appears to be the cardinal feature of their lives. Gendered roles subside
Most of the research on couples published in the social-science literature focuses on the trials and tribulations of young married couples and, in recent history, mostly on the predictors of marital demise. In this chapter we overview the social-science literature on marriage in old age. We describe the nature of married life in old age and report the stated fears and joys of marriage at this final stage of life. We also address the end of marriage in old age which—due to differences in life expectancy combined with cultural traditions of women marrying older men—prototypically occurs when the husband dies. Finally, we critically examine the social structural conditions that place women who have dedicated themselves to these important relationships for most of their lives at risk for financial and social problems in very old age. Unfortunately, few studies have examined same-sex couples, and no comprehensive study has examined same-sex older couples. For this reason, our chapter discusses relationships between husbands and wives.
THE LIFE COURSE OF MARRIAGE
Researchers interested in the course of marital happiness long held that satisfaction with marriage declines after the initial “honeymoon stage” comes to a close (e.g., Pineo 1961). Although these early studies were restricted primarily to relatively new marriages, viz., the first fifteen years, the tendency was to reason by extrapolation that by very old age, marriages were likely to be marked by significant apathy and disenchantment (Pineo 1961).
However, as the longitudinal studies themselves aged, research revealed a distinctly different pattern (Field and Weishaus 1992). Overall satisfaction follows a curvilinear pattern, with satisfaction high in the early years of marriage, relatively low in the middle years, and returning to higher levels in old age (Rollins 1989). Other studies examining differences across age groups of married couples also find a curvilinear pattern. When both positive and negative aspects of marriage are assessed—that is, when spouses are asked separately about the good and the bad qualities of their marriage—young couples describe many positive
Although research clearly does not support the “familiarity breeds contempt” hypothesis suggested by the early studies, we caution that the optimistic picture of marriage in old age should be tempered somewhat by potential alternative explanations. Older marriages inevitably represent those marriages that have survived the test of time. Studies based on comparisons of different age groups at one point in time may simply reflect the fact that the population of older couples has been distilled—so to speak—by divorce, leaving behind only the happily married older couples. In addition, relationship satisfaction is not impervious to outside influences. Couples who are happy may be happy due to circumstances unrelated to their marital functioning. Poverty, for example, is a risk factor for unhappiness, divorce, and mortality.
However, the finding that marriage grows better in old age is bolstered by findings from retrospective interview studies as well. When asked to reflect on their marriages, women who had been married for fifty years or more concurred that a curvilinear pattern of satisfaction best described these important relationships (Condie 1989). In fact, most older couples are quick to report that their marriages have not progressed along unvarying paths of marital bliss. When asked to give advice to young women concerning marriage, one widowed woman who had been married many years responded that one “shouldn't expect to always love your husband.” In discussing her marriage, another woman we interviewed mentioned that younger couples often noticed how happy she and her husband acted when they were together and marveled at how lucky they were to have found each other and to have had such a successful marriage. Despite the intentions of these younger couples, this woman saw their remarks as misguided. She said that she was angry that they presumed her marriage was based on luck and a perfect compatibility. Her marriage had taken a lot of hard work, both from herself and her husband, and the happiness that they were experiencing was the result of years of working together, compromising, and surviving difficult ordeals. This is consistent with other studies where older adults have stressed that long-term marriage demands a commitment to the
MARRIAGE GETS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER
To reiterate, although some caveats are necessary, the profile of research findings about marital satisfaction in old age is quite positive. It is not true that marriage involves a gradual and steady discontentment with a spouse, but there is a decided drop in marital happiness in the middle years before couples achieve this higher level of satisfaction. The most burning question that arises from the life-span literature on marriage is: What goes wrong in midlife? In a word, the answer appears to be “children.” Especially among women, dissatisfaction with marriage increases after the birth of the first child (Cowan and Cowan 1992) and remains relatively high until grown children are launched from the home. Even fluctuations in marital satisfaction are associated with fluctuating demands of child rearing. Dissatisfaction peaks when children are very young and again when they reach adolescence. Essentially two changes occur. Time spent together in pleasurable activities declines (Gilford and Bengtson 1979) and conflicts over child rearing arise (Gable, Belsky, and Crnic 1992). The latter appears to be the more important of the two.
Philip and Carolyn Cowan, family researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, place gender differences at the core of marital problems related to parenting. They point out that at the same time marital satisfaction is plummeting after the birth of a child, both mothers and fathers are deriving great satisfaction from the child. The Cowans argue that a simple fatigue factor does not account for marital dissatisfaction. Rather, in studies that track the transition into parenthood, the birth of a first child brings about a striking division of labor that falls squarely along gender lines—even among couples who have managed highly egalitarian marriages to that point—and these strict gender roles lead to marital discontent (Cowan and Cowan 1988).
After the birth of a child, most women experience dramatic changes in their lives. They immediately fall in love with the baby and identify strongly as mothers. Among fathers, the change is often more gradual. It may take a year before a new father comes to feel comfortable and identified with his role. Day-to-day life typically changes in very different ways for new mothers and fathers. Mothers nearly always assume more
Other research supports the Cowans' analysis. Findings from “natural experiments” reveal a similar pattern with the parents. Not only do marital interactions improve when children leave home, they decline again in cases where adult children return to live with their parents. Given this strong relationship, we must be clear. Children are not the direct source of personal distress. Mothers and fathers typically count their children among their greatest sources of joy, but couples appear to be happiest with their marriages when their children are grown and living independently.
THE UPWARD TURN IN MARITAL HAPPINESS
It is unlikely that children leaving home is the only reason that relationship satisfaction improves over time. In fact, considering that children could be used as a reason to stay together, one might predict a flurry of divorces after children leave home. But this is not the case. Perhaps the Nietzschean adage “What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger” applies. Experience, no doubt, plays a role in spouses' growing satisfaction with one another. Over the years, couples report that they have solved many of their problems and learned to put aside most of the unsolvable ones. It also may be that conflicts take on different meanings in the context of very long-lived marriages. The closeness and predictability of longterm relationships allow conflicts to be resolved with greater security and comfort than can be found in relatively new relationships. Indeed, it may be within such contexts that people master the art of regulating their own emotional states while at the same time soothing and caring for another.
Older couples do appear to be better able to resolve the conflicts they
Forced to choose one word that describes older couples' relationships, we would have to say “friendship.” Older couples describe increasing closeness over the years (Atchley 1977; Field and Weishaus 1992). One study queried happily married older couples as to what they perceived was responsible for the success of their marriages (Lauer, Lauer, and Kerr 1990). The three topranked criteria were the same for men and women (although the order varied somewhat). They were commitment, liking their spouse, and having their best friend for a spouse. Older widows, reflecting on the reasons their marriages had survived for so many years, also talked about conditions that resonate with notions of friendship. In their view, compromise and being able to pursue individual as well as joint interests accounted for success in marriage (Malatesta 1989).
The term “friendship” can convey a lack of sexual passion. But here, too, an image of asexuality in old age does not reflect the true nature of older relationships. Sexual intercourse does decrease in frequency over the course of a long-term relationship. Sexual activity is most likely to cease, however, due to the illness of a partner rather than disinterest. And although there are couples who stop all sexual contact in old age, many other older people report that sexual activity improves with age. In part because intercourse and orgasm are less central, lovemaking can grow more relaxed and emotionally intimate. Thus, there are changes in sexual functioning over the course of a marriage, but “asexual” does not well characterize them.
Is there something about growing older that makes people better partners? One life-span developmental theory suggests that this may be so. According to socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen 1993; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, and Charles 1999) throughout life people monitor the passage of time, not just clock time or calendar time but lifetime. At conscious and subconscious levels people are aware of their place in the life cycle. Early in life, when the future is perceived as expansive, attention is focused on the long term. As people age, they become increasingly
Analogies can be made between the individual life course and the life course of a relationship (Carstensen et al. 1996). Early in a relationship, when the future is looming large, the resolution of conflicts is extremely important and adaptive. Even if negative emotions are experienced intensely during conflict discussions, the payoff may be considerable. Yet, as couples move through life, two things happen. For one, quite a number of conflicts are resolved. Second, the motivation to resolve certain other conflicts may subside. Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that the motivation to regulate the immediate emotional climate of intimate relationships increases in later life. Especially if endings are primed, through the illness of a spouse or even the illness of age-mates, couples may attempt increasingly to maintain a positive emotional climate. It is not that conflicts do not exist; rather, their discussion is viewed as having little purpose during this penultimate phase of life. In a letter to Clara Spaulding dated August 20, 1886, Mark Twain wrote, “There isn't time—so brief is life—for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving—and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
Emotionally close social relationships offer a number of benefits in old age. Intimate emotional relationships in later life appear to buffer individuals from mental and physical health problems. In addition, studies comparing married individuals to those who are not married indicate that married people are generally physically and mentally healthier, economically more advantaged, and embedded in a broader social support network over and above the addition of the spouse (Renne 1971; Ross and Mirowsky 1989). Having a spouse also decreases the chances of living alone and increases the availability of both instrumental and emotional support. For men and women, actual support from their spouses is related to well-being, although this relationship is far stronger for women than men (Acitelli and Antonucci 1994). In addition, perceived support is also an important predictor of well-being for women. Among
Unfortunately, most of the research comparing married and unmarried people tacitly considers unmarried people a monolithic group. The few studies that have examined differences among subgroups of widowed, divorced, and ever-single individuals suggest that there are important differences. Moreover, gender differences are apparent in the advantages and disadvantages within subgroups.
The deleterious effects of being single fall most heavily upon the divorced and widowed. Ever-single people look similar to the long-term married (Huyck 1995; Verbrugge 1979), suggesting that it is not the lack of a spouse that causes problems, but the process of losing one (a point to which we return later). For never-married individuals, women also rank higher on measures of adjustment and satisfaction compared to men. Never-married men, in contrast, rate themselves as less satisfied than never-married women and more desirous of marriage (Frazier et al. 1996). In addition, never-married women report better health than never-married men as well as better health than men and women who had been divorced or widowed (Cramer 1993).
These findings at first seem counterintuitive given social mores that depict marriage as more desired for women and refer to unmarried women derogatively as “spinsters” and “old maids.” (For men, no equivalent derogatory words exist.) Although widowed women report feeling sorry for women who do not have family, these negative connotations do not appear to be adopted by the never-married women themselves (Newtson and Keith 1997). In interviews with never-married women, many expressed having no regrets, and the ones who did express regrets mention not having children (Alexander et al. 1992). Few expressed regret over not being married (Newtson and Keith 1997). Single women tend to have larger social support networks with friends and are more likely to care for other family members compared to their male counterparts.
In addition, gender differences also emerge when examining divorced and widowed men and women. Men who have divorced are more likely to increase alcohol consumption and commit suicide than other men. This association does not exist for women (Rossow 1993). Moreover, widowerhood is associated with a greater mortality among men, but
retirement and gender roles
When social scientists began to study the effects of retirement on marriage, they primarily studied couples of which men were the primary wage-earners and women seldom held occupations outside their homes. The expectation of these researchers was that the entry of the husband into the home full time would result in a disequilibrium in the marriage and discontent, especially on the part of the wife. Women, it was felt, would resent their husbands' intrusion into the household domain. If husbands felt that wives were now available to them all of the time to prepare meals, run errands, and so on, retirement could translate to more work for wives. One woman we talked with mentioned that when her husband retired, he wanted her to participate in his new hobbies, which took her away from her usual social activities with her friends.
Although there certainly are cases of women citing problems associated with their husbands' retirement, the literature does not support the general view that retirement hails dissatisfaction with marriage. On the contrary, there is some reason to think that the retirement years are marked by a modest—only modest—softening of gender roles, a point to which we return below. Some studies find that retirement improves marriage (Atchley 1976), others conclude that it slightly reduces satisfaction (Lee and Shehan 1989), and still others conclude that there are not significant changes in either direction (Vinick and Ekerdt 1991).
Vinick and Ekerdt, for example, studied husbands and wives during the first year after retirement. They found that husbands and wives reported engaging in more leisure activities together. In addition, nearly 40 percent of the women in this study reported that they experienced a reduction in social activities with their friends but that this decrease was not related to their satisfaction. Upon closer examination, findings suggested that wives approached their husbands' retirements as opportunities to selectively prune their activities, keeping those that were more important and dropping less important engagements. Because these women reported that they enjoyed time with their husbands, spending
With retirement comes a potential reorganization of home life and the opportunity for gender roles to lessen. Care of the home, traditionally wives' concern, can be divided equally after husbands retire, resulting in a more equitable marital relationship. In addition, the power and authority associated with husbands' breadwinning status also may diminish after retirement, contributing further to a reduction in disparities in power. However, here too, research suggests that changes are not substantial. The availability of the husband to share in the household tasks does not appear to translate into less work for the wife. Men do report spending more time on household chores than ever before, but these chores largely comprise large-scale projects, such as remodeling, repairs, or yard work (Vinick and Ekerdt 1991). Husbands, even after retirement, contribute far less to the daily responsibilities of running a home.
Szinovacz and Harpster (1994) divided tasks into “female” chores, comprising mainly food preparation, laundry, and cleaning the house, and “male” chores, which included errands, outdoor tasks, and paying bills. They found that husbands of working wives did engage in more “female” and “male” household chores than husbands of homemaking or retired wives. However, regardless of the employment status of the wife or husband, wives invested more hours in household work than husbands. Not surprisingly, gender roles were maintained even after retirement. Husbands continued to engage in more male-typed chores than wives and wives to engage in more female-typed chores than husbands. The crossover was greater for women, however. Wives spent thirty-two hours a week on female-typed tasks and nine hours per week on male-typed tasks. Husbands spent seven hours per week on femaletyped tasks and twelve hours per week on male-typed tasks. As during earlier life stages, wives spend many more hours per week working in the home than husbands (Szinovacz and Harpster 1994).
Although one could argue that this disparity reflects female interests, inequity in the division of household labor is related to dissatisfaction with the marriage, particularly when wives expect their husbands to participate more in household duties after retirement (Lee and Shehan 1989). One change associated with late life that does appear to shift gendered roles is physical decline. When one spouse is disabled, the other does assume responsibility for tasks previously assigned to the partner. That is, husbands do increase their contribution to household chores,
Thus, gendered role assignments in the home do soften slightly after retirement, but substantial changes in the completion of household tasks do not occur unless and until spouses are physically disabled.
RISK FACTORS OF MARRIAGE
To this point, we have reviewed general findings about the late years of marriage, and on average, the picture is quite positive. However, not all long-term marriages are happy. This is especially true in current cohorts of older married couples. Because divorce was far less acceptable in older generations, many couples did stay together despite considerable dissatisfaction. What happens to unhappily married couples in old age?
Once again, the effects are gendered and disadvantages fall predominantly on wives. Unhappily married older women have more physical and mental health problems than happily married older women. However, among older husbands, the quality of the marriage is unrelated to physical and mental health status (Levenson, Carstensen, and Gottman 1993). Although clear answers to this question are unknown, one study of younger wives found that bad marriages were associated not only with loneliness and depression but immune systems were also affected to such an extent that resistance to infections was lowered as well (Kiecolt-Glaser et al. 1987). It may be that compromised immune systems related to enduring emotional dissatisfaction can have lasting physical effects (Davidson et al. 1999).
The general consensus among marriage researchers is that differential effects of bad marriages stem from differential meanings of marriage for women and men. Wives are the keepers of marriage, in some sense. Regardless of age, wives appear to feel responsible for the emotional quality of the marriage. When the emotional quality of a marriage is poor or when couples are simply not close, it influences how wives feel about themselves (Tower and Kasl 1996). When husbands grow disenchanted with a marriage, in contrast, it is less likely to be reflected in how they feel about themselves as individuals.
This gender difference may reflect more general differences in the
Even in close marriages, there is an emotional cost to caring deeply about another person. For example, depression in one spouse predicts depression in the other (Tower and Kasl 1996a), and this association increases as the level of intimacy increases (ibid. 1996b). This might be one factor of the cooccurrence of clinical depression in older couples (Eagles et al. 1987). Again, however, there is a gender difference. Men are less likely to become depressed if they have a depressed spouse than the reverse scenario (Hagnell and Kreitman 1974). In addition, when a husband reports marital distress, both he and his wife report more depressive symptoms and life stress; when the wife reports marital distress, only she reports more depression and life stress (Whiffen and Gotlib 1989).
ILLNESS AND CAREGIVING
In Ann Landers's December 13, 1995, column, she quoted an elderly couple, Rose and Bruce Bliven. In three poignant sentences, they had captured the essence of marriage in old age. They wrote, “When we are old, the young are kinder to us and we are kinder to each other. There is a sunset glow that radiates from our faces and is reflected on the faces of those about us. But still, it is sunset.”
A near inevitability of long-term marriage is that one spouse falls ill before the other and comes to require assistance in basic activities of daily living. When the infirm spouse is the husband, the wife almost always assumes the caregiving role. And because of differences in life expectancy coupled with cultural tendencies for women to marry older men, wives are far more likely to nurse their husbands through serious illnesses at the end of life than the reverse. Thus much of the reason that women are more likely to be caregivers than men involves the statistical odds of which spouse will require care. Relatively older husbands with
But odds, luck, or chance do not account for the entire story. Caregiving responsibilities fall along gender lines. The path of responsibility does not flow directly down bloodlines or generations and is not reciprocated evenly between husbands and wives. Wives nearly always care for husbands, but it is often daughters who care for elderly mothers. In families where there are only sons, daughters-in-law often provide care. And when daughters-in-law are not available, the burden is likely to fall on a granddaughter or a niece. Only rarely are caregiving responsibilities assumed by sons (Horowitz 1985). As during earlier stages of life, the vast majority of unpaid caregivers of the infirm elderly are women (England et al. 1991).
Not only is the likelihood of becoming a caregiver different for women and men, the experience of caregiving is different as well. Wives are more likely to be the sole providers of care. Husbands, in contrast, are more likely to share caregiving responsibilities with others. When a wife, as opposed to a husband, becomes ill, other family members are more likely to contribute to caregiving (Morris et al. 1991). Moreover, husbands are more likely to hire professional aides to assist with caregiving, and even friends and neighbors are more likely to help a husband care for a wife than vice versa (Zarit, Orr, and Zarit 1982).
Very likely this difference relates to the fact that caregiving is common among women. At all points in adulthood, women provide care. Most older women have considerable expertise in caring for other people. Over the years, they have cared for children, adult parents, and other relatives. In many cases, people rightly assume that women are less likely to need help providing care than men. Many wives actively refuse offers of help because they feel that their husbands would prefer to receive care directly from them. Thus, in some ways, it seems only natural that wives care for husbands when they become ill.
Natural or unnatural, a toll is clearly taken. Wives generally describe the caregiving experience as more stressful than do husbands (Barusch and Spaid 1989). Caregiving is related to a wide range of emotional distress including feelings of anger, hostility, and anxiety. Indeed, caregiving is the greatest known risk factor for clinical depression. Fully half of all caregivers become clinically depressed (Gallagher et al. 1989). In addition to threats to financial security and physical health that extended illness presents, caregiving responsibilities often place severe restrictions
Not surprisingly, the quality of the marriage prior to the illness influences the caregiving experience (Williamson, Shaffer, and Schulz 1998). For example, the relationship between restriction of activities and psychological distress varies according to how caregivers describe their relationship when their spouse was healthy. People in reciprocally affectionate relationships stand to lose the affection and support they received from their spouse in addition to absorbing the new strains of caregiving. For those whose relationships were relatively independent of the other, the caregiving role is marked by fewer losses but also by greater resentment.
Even when a spouse is not the primary caretaker for his or her partner, the relationship can change drastically due to the illness of one partner. Arguably, the most significant assault to an otherwise happy marriage in the later years is dementia. Strokes, multi-infarct dementia, and Alzheimer's disease are several of the more common causes of cognitive impairment in later life. In such cases, caregiving involves yet another wicked twist. The infirm spouse—robbed of his or her memory—eventually does not recognize the caregiver as his or her spouse; in very advanced stages, dementias destroy the sense of self. In a series of interviews with spouses of institutionalized demented patients, Gladstone (1995) reported that almost half of the study participants described their marriages as distant memories. They spoke of their relationships in the past tense and, even in cases where spouses expressed considerable love for their partners, they described the “real” person as “gone.”
Many caregivers, despite the perceptions that the marriage was over, however, emphasized the perceived responsibility of caring for their spouse. One person expressed a strong sense of duty to care for the “body” of the spouse lost. Still others described their marriages as illusions or as having drastically changed. Some wives described their spouses in childlike terms. For many people, the situation represents a permanent purgatory from which they cannot advance. One older man expressed great emotional turmoil because he was contemplating seeing another woman and “cheating” on his wife. This husband visited his wife every day in a nursing home even though she had ceased to recognize
WIDOWHOOD: WHEN MARRIAGE ENDS
With the exception of those rare occasions when spouses die together, one spouse typically survives the other, and the survivor is usually the wife. In fact, most men live out their lives as part of a married couple. Most women do not. For women, the average length of widowhood is fifteen years. At the age of eighty-four years, 62 percent of men are still married, but only 20 percent of women are married. Thus, in some ways Western marital customs are well designed for husbands. At all stages of marriage, husbands report greater marital satisfaction than wives. Married men, but not married women, derive protective physical and mental health benefits from marriage. And at the end of life, when marriages appear to be more happy than ever before, women are more likely than men to spend their last years alone.
In widowhood, women face a cruel irony. Immediately following what is arguably the least gendered time in life for women and when heterosexual intimate relationships appear—by and large—to be close and deeply satisfying, older women face a time in life in which the cumulative effects of lifetimes of discrimination loom larger than ever before. In widowhood long-standing social and cultural practices come head-on with economic structures, perhaps more so than any other time in life.
Many women—even those who enjoyed reasonably high socioeconomic status earlier in their lives—live out the end of their lives alone and poor (Carstensen and Pasupathi 1993). And one of the principal contributors to the problems older women face is related to the process of becoming widowed. Importantly, the problem is not the psychological loss. The vast majority of widowed women adjust—psychologically—notably well (better than widowers, whose mortality risk increases). Rather, the problem involves the cultural and economic process of becoming widowed.
The disadvantages for married women come about for three reasons. First, because wives—throughout life—usually earn less than husbands, their own retirement income is less, and they are also the logical candidates
Third, older women frequently retire from the workforce in order to care for ailing spouses, parents, or siblings. Consequently, women receive approximately 24 percent less than elderly men in Social Security benefits and have less private supplemental income. The Social Security system penalizes women for the very work patterns our society encourages because of the enormous benefits they yield for husbands and children. Health care costs and legal requirements for the spending down of assets before government assistance is provided for their sick and dying spouses are the last blows. Because women are typically the survivors of marriages, they are the ones to bear the brunt of these practices and often face the end of life poor and isolated.
In many ways, women and men grow similar in later life. Marriages appear to be happy and fulfilling. Yet due to the culmination of societal practices over a lifetime, in the end women and men face maximally different lives. And marriage is at the root of the disadvantages women face. Massive structural inequities experienced due to the culmination of societal practices over a lifetime come to the fore. Whatever a woman's marital status is in middle age, she will probably be single in old age and she will probably be less secure financially and socially than she was earlier in her life.
CONCLUSIONS
In our society, couples—typically freely chosen unions—assume tremendous importance. Symbolically, couples represent significant social “units.” They lay the foundation for family building and serve as building blocks in friendship networks. Moreover, whether heterosexual or same sex, intimate relationships are invariably intertwined with gender, and invariably, they age.
Research on marriage suggests that those couples who survive together for forty, fifty, or sixty years are rewarded with richly satisfying relationships in later life. An often unnoted fact is that long-term marriages are historically new and may soon become a thing of the past. Until this century, the length of marriage was constrained by life expectancy. Contemporary older couples represent the first cohorts in human history where so many people have married and stayed together for life
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