The relationship of childhood experience to the quality of marriage.

A model for the effect of child-parent relationships on later adult marital quality was tested by questionnaire in 124 general practice patients. Recollections of parental care and overprotection measured by the PBI correlated significantly with Locke-Wallace measures of marital quality primarily in females. Correlations were larger in a homogeneous group where previous marriages and emotional illness were eliminated, and in those who had experienced childhood separations from parents. The results are consistent with an interactive model where the quality of childhood experience determines the quality of adult marriages primarily when separation experiences have been present.