An exploratory study of successful African-American couples, their social construction of marriage and the sociological, psychological and sociocultural attributes of their relationship

Existing research in the field of marriage report that African-American marriages are less happy, less stable and different from other marriages. These findings are based on correlates of marital satisfaction that are culturally irrelevant for some African-American couples. The present research explores a conceptualization of marriage from an African-American perspective utilizing successful couples as direct sources of data. More specifically, this study sought to ascertain a definition of a successful marriage according to successful African-American couples as well as factors they attribute to the success of their marriage. It further explored the influence of socio-economic status and level of acculturation on the conceptualization of marriage and the marital experiences of the couples.;To achieve this end the African Self-Consciousness Scale (ASC) was used to attain level of acculturation, a basic demographic scale was used to attain socio-economic status, and an intensive interview utilizing the narrative discourse method was used to explore the conceptualization of a successful marriage and factors contributing to the success of the marriage. Data obtained via the ASC and demographic scale were used to develop a profile of each couple. Data obtained via narrative discourse were subjected to discourse analysis in an effort to identify concepts, themes and trends in the relationships that impacted on the success of the marriage.