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Thrice Told Tales

Married Couples Tell Their Stories

• By Diane Holmberg, Terri L. Orbuch, Joseph Veroff

• Price: $29.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 248
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 1st September 2003
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-4100-8

About the Book

Researchers have studied marriage for decades, but how is the transition to married life actually experienced by the couples involved? From an insider's perspective, Thrice Told Tales examines married couples' own stories of their relationship. A representative sample of 199 African-American and 177 White married couples were asked to tell the story of their relationship. It provides accounts of courtships, weddings, honeymoons, their adjustment in the early years, and hopes for the future. These stories were first collected a few months after their weddings, and again in the third and seventh years of their marriages.


What features of their relationship do the couples highlight as central in the early years? How do their stories change over time? What can we learn about couples' marital well-being by analyzing their stories? How do the stories of men and women, and of White and African-American couples differ? These questions were systematically addressed using extensive coding schemes and comprehensive quantitative analyses. Details of the coding system and procedures are included, making this volume a useful reference for any researcher contemplating analysis of narrative data. However, the key points are also explained in simple prose and illustrated with quotes from the couples' own stories, making the book accessible to anyone with an interest in how young couples experience married life today.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface. Introduction. A Narrative Approach to Relationships. The Early Years of Marriage Project. Newlyweds' Stories. Beyond the Honeymoon: Changes in Narratives Over Time. Tales of Love and Woe: The Interconnections Between Relationship Narratives and Marital Well-Being. Changing Our Yesterdays: Reconstruction of Early Relationship Memories. Gender as a Factor Affecting Narratives. Ethnicity as a Factor Affecting Narratives. What Have We Learned About Marriage? What Have We Learned About Narratives? Appendices.