Abstract
A marital commitment scale was created to study marital relationships of middle-aged and elderly couples. This study examined the scale’s reliability and validity. A total of 840 middle-aged and elderly married participants ranged from 37 to 89 years completed the marital commitment questionnaire and answered questions regarding marital love, perception of the balance of power between spouses, and the concept of gender roles. The results showed that marital commitment consisted of: personal commitment, resigned and instrumental commitment and normative commitment. Personal commitment was highly correlated with marital love. Resigned and instrumental commitment was correlated with perception of poorly balanced of power between spouses. Normative commitment was correlated with the concept of traditional gender roles. Thus the internal consistency as well as the construct and criterion-related validity of the marital commitment scale were confirmed. Gender differences were also identified. Men scored higher on personal and normative commitment, and women scored higher on resigned and instrumental commitment. The results are discussed in terms of gender.
