The legacy of parents' marital discord: Consequences for children's marital quality

Drawing on a national longitudinal study of 297 parents and their married o ffspring, the authors found that parents' marital discord was negatively re lated to offspring's marital harmony and positively related to offspring's marital discord. The transmission of marital quality was not mediated by pa rental divorce, life-course variables, socioeconomic attainment, retrospect ive measures of parent-child relationships, or psychological distress. Offs pring's recollections of parental discord, however, mediated about half of the association between parents' reports of marital discord and offspring's reports of discord in their own marriages. Parental behaviors most likely to predict problematic marriages among offspring included jealousy, being d omineering, getting angry easily, being critical, being moody, and not talk ing to the spouse.