The effects of premarital relationship enrichment programs on marriage strength: A narrative review article

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Strengthening marriage relationship includes a body of programs focusing on boosting the couples' common understanding, honesty, trust, empathy and coordination. Premarital consultation along with the couples' relationship enrichment can result in their improved relationship. The current study aims to analyze the studies conducted on consultation programs for marriage relationship enrichment and marriage strength. Methods:The current study is a narrative review performed using key words related to advanced search in database like Pubmed, Google Scholar, Web of Sciences, Magiran, Iran Medex and SID in the past 20 years. After recovering 57 papers, 10 Persian ones along with 25 English papers directly related to this issue and cited by famous authors many times have been given in the paper's results. Results: The findings show that premarital consultation through promoting life skills, familiarity with spouse selection criteria and paving the ground for accepting gender role in marriage can be considered as one of the critical components of strengthening marriage. Conclusion: Premarital consultation helps human beings to improve their relationship by knowing themselves and their would-be partner, clarifying their expectations from each other, promoting problem solving and getting aware of compatible and incompatible characteristics before marriage. By considering the population policy of Iran and in order to meeting favorite relationship between newly wedding couples, it's suggested to provide suitable premarital counseling packages according to Iranian socio-cultural context.

Effective Factors in Marital Satisfaction in Perspective of Iranian Women and Men: A systematic review

“…Most studies have referred to the age ranges of 18–25 and 24–30 years as suitable marriage ages for men and women, respectively (12–14) because some believe that marriage at these ages is accompanied with a higher quality of life and that marriage at the age of below 18 for women and 20 for men will likely be associated with divorce or failure (11) and decreased stability of marriage (15). In some studies, it was indicated that young and old married individuals were not satisfied with their married lives; however, dissatisfaction was higher among young married couples (16–17). It seems that the suitable marriage age is influenced by culture and geographical region (18).…”

“…In some studies, it was indicated that young and old married individuals were not satisfied with their married lives; however, dissatisfaction was higher among young married couples (16–17). It seems that the suitable marriage age is influenced by culture and geographical region (18). …”

“…In some studies, between age differences and marital satisfaction there were negative statistically significant differences (17, 19) and in others positive statistically significant differences were observed (20). It is usually recommended that a woman should be 2–4 years younger than a man (13).…”

“…This issue can be defined within cultural and geographical structures (18) and vary according to specific social criteria and traditions of each country. Different definitions have been proposed for the number of these years, which indicates cultural differences (17). …”

“…However, it does not mean lack of this will result in incompatibility and lack of understanding between couples, because such factors are interpreted based on the intellectual and epistemic background of the woman and the man (13, 22). The educational level of the spouse was an important factor among young adults in selecting their appropriate partners (29), and there was a significant difference between girls and boys in terms of this important factor (18). …”