LONG-TERM MARRIAGES IN SWEDEN - AND SOME COMPARISONS WITH SIMILAR COUPLES IN THE UNITED-STATES

This international, five-country ''long term marriages'' study of coup les who have been married, or unmarried and cohabiting, for 20 years o r longer is designed to study, among other things, marital satisfactio n. This first report of the Swedish part of the study reports on a Swe dish version of the self-rating ''Dyadic Adjustment Scale'' (DAS) used to investigate self-rated marital satisfaction. The couples describe high marital satisfaction and a high sense of coherence (SOC) compared to other groups. Contrary to other studies, no differences were found between men and women regarding SOC. The differences between them, th at describe high relative to low marital satisfaction, pertain to matt ers of recreation, sex, life philosophy, time spent together, and freq uency of quarrels. The men reported greater marital satisfaction than the women.