Marital Quality and Life Stress:A Study of Urban Couples

The aim of the present research was to study life stress in relation to marital quality of couples in urban middle socioeconomic strata. A sample of 200 persons (100 married couples) was purposefully selected from Chandigarh and its neighbouring districts. Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale (PSLES) by Singh et al. (1984) was used for measuring life stress (both for last one year and for the lifetime) and to measure marital quality, Relation Assessment Scale (RAS) by Hendrick (1988) was used. The average number of stressful events faced by these persons during their past one year and during lifetime came out to be 4.51 and 17.51, respectively. The average number of stressful events faced by these persons during their lifetime is more than the average number of events faced by an average Indian adult person without having these stressful events' adverse physical or psychological disturbance, but in case of the stress caused during the past year it is not so. When the couples were compared on life stress, husbands were found to be significantly more stressed than their wives. Overall marital quality was found to be high as experienced by both husbands and wives. Marital quality was found to have significant negative correlation with stress, both during the past one year (r= -0.223**) as well as for the lifetime (r= -0.152*).