Recent textbook treatments of marital quality and equality treat
equality as a precondition for marital quality. Other comparative
treatments have viewed quality and equality as unrelated or in
versely related. Using data from a sample of 186 preindustrial
societies, one dimension of marital quality is examined against 13
indicators of sexual inequality and 4 indicators of marital role
sharing. The findings show that role sharing is the more crucial
factor to marital quality. Implications for research and theory are
discussed.
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