Chinese adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s marriage,in-law relationship quality,and adult children’s marital satisfaction

Abstract

Based on three annual waves of data obtained from 265 Chinese couples during the early years of marriage and using an actor–partner interdependence mediation model with latent difference scores, this study examined the associations among adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with their (i.e., adult children’s) marriage, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction. Results indicated that husbands’ and wives’ perceived parental satisfaction with their (i.e., adult children’s) marriage was indirectly associated with the changes in their (i.e., adult children’s) marital satisfaction via their (i.e., adult children’s) perceived relationship quality with either fathers-in-law (FILs) or mothers-in-law (MILs); however, when husbands’ and wives’ perceived relationship quality with FILs and MILs was considered simultaneously in a single model, only two indirect pathways were still retained: Husbands’ and wives’ perceived parents’ satisfaction (HPS and WPS) with adult children’s marriage was associated with the changes in wives’ marital satisfaction exclusively via wives’ perceived relationship quality with their MILs. Such findings suggest the particularly salient roles of the relationship between daughters-in-law and MILs in shaping Chinese adult children’s marital well-being and also highlight the importance of conceptualizing families as configurations of interdependent relationships across multiple households and examining marital well-being from ecological and social network perspectives.

Keywords

Chinese couple family of origin in-law relationship intergenerational relationship marital satisfaction parental attitude

According to the ecological model of marriage (Huston, 2000) and the social network perspective (Milardo & Helms-Erikson, 2000), no couple exists as an isolated island; rather, marital relationships are embedded in an intricate web of interdependent ties in which various people’s interests must be negotiated. Although research has demonstrated that different social network factors are generally associated with conjugal bonds (Parks, 2007; Sprecher, Felmlee, Orbuch, & Willetts, 2002; Sprecher, Felmlee, Schmeeckle, & Shu, 2006), parental attitude toward their adult children’s marriage and in-law relationship quality have been identified as particularly salient network determinants of adult children’s marital outcomes (e.g., Bryant & Conger, 1999; Bryant, Conger, & Meehan, 2001; Felmlee, 2001; Högnäs & Carlson, 2010; Morr Serewicz & Hosmer, 2011; Sprecher, 2011; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1992; Wu et al., 2010; Zhang & Kline, 2009). Based on three annual waves of data from Chinese couples during the early years of marriage and utilizing an actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM; Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011) with latent difference scores (LDS; McArdle, 2009), the present study examines the extent to which adult married children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with their (i.e., adult children’s) marriage is associated with the changes in adult children’s own and partners’ reports of marital satisfaction via adult children’s perceived relationship quality with their parents-in-law (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The conceptual model. Note. T₁ = the first time point, T₂ = the second time point, and T₃ = the third time point.

Testing such associations among Chinese couples, a population that has been historically underrepresented in prior marital research, is important because of the following considerations. Traditional Chinese families had long been organized based on a hierarchy of age and generation in which elder parents had supreme power in family issues, and children were socialized to obey parents’ commands and tend to parents’ preferences (Whyte, 2004). Thus, Chinese adult children’s mate selection and marital lives have been long under parental control (Riley, 1994; Xu & Whyte, 1990). Despite the shift from a parental arranged marriage system to a more personal choice–based marriage system in China (Pimentel, 2000), parents’ involvements and interferences in adult children’s mate selection processes and marital lives are still often high. Furthermore, in the contemporary Chinese society, filial piety remains highly valued and married youths still tend to view the ways they treat parents’ opinions as essential measures of personal moral worth and central criteria to evaluate family solidarity (Shek, 2006; Zhang & Kline, 2009). Chinese culture also has been characterized by endorsement of extended family coresidence, and this living arrangement remains numerically and symbolically significant in the contemporary China (Zhang, 2004). Even for Chinese married adult children who do not live with parents, most of them tend to stay closely tied to parents via visits and mutual aid (Logan & Bian, 2005). As such, Chinese married adult children’s lives and parents’ lives are often highly intertwined. This may lead to increased incidence of relationship issues between married adult children and their parents or parents-in-law, which in turn may influence adult children’s marital well-being.

It is also noteworthy that the present study complements and extends prior research in a series of theoretical and methodological ways. First, an emerging body of research has suggested that the seeds of in-law relationship quality and their impacts on the fate of adult children’s conjugal ties may be sown by parental attitude toward adult children’s marriage or spouse in the early stages of (or even before) marriage (Fingerman, Gilligan, VanderDrift, & Pitzer, 2012; Mikucki-Enyart, Caughlin, & Rittenour, 2015; Morr Serewicz, Hosmer, Ballard, & Griffin, 2008; Prentice, 2008). Accordingly, in-law relationship quality may be one understudied yet critical mechanism via which parental attitude affects adult children’s marital well-being. The present study represents one of the first efforts in empirically testing this proposition. Second, research on in-law relationship and its association with adult children’s marital well-being has primarily focused on the relationship between mothers-in-law (MILs) and daughters-in-law (DILs) (Fischer, 1983; Rittenour & Kellas, 2015; Wu et al., 2010) or the global in-law relationship without specifying particular parent-in-law (Morr Serewicz et al., 2008; Timmer & Veroff, 2000). As Morr Serewicz (2006) and Morr Serewicz and Hosmer (2011) suggested, research on the relationship between MIL and DIL should be matched by research including fathers-in-law (FILs) and sons-in-law (SILs) to obtain increased specificity in our understanding of the relative implications that different in-law dyads may have for adult children’s marital outcomes. The present study echoes this call by including in-law relationships involving males in analyses.

Third, the present study adds to a limited body of research examining the influences of social network factors on couple relationship well-being in the early years of marriage (Kearns & Leonard, 2004). Given the task of forming a separate and autonomous family while also maintaining connections to families-of-origin (Schramm, Marshall, Harris, & Lee, 2005), couples in the early years of marriage may be more susceptible to the influences from parents and parents-in-law than those in more established relationship. In addition, the utilization of samples of couples with more homogeneous marital lengths also decreases the possibility that important effects may be masked by differences associated with relationship duration (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Lastly, as compared to those of prior research, the nature of the data and the analytic techniques used in the present study are more rigorous for addressing the temporal ordering of study variables and have higher power for detecting indirect effects: the dyadic, longitudinal mediation models across three waves of data (Ledermann et al., 2011; Maxwell, Cole, & Mitchell, 2011); the bootstrapping approach estimating bias-corrected standard errors (SEs) and confidence intervals (CIs) for indirect effects (Preacher & Hayes, 2008); and the LDS indices of prospective changes in outcome variables (McArdle, 2009).

Parental attitude and adult children’s marital satisfaction

Entering marriage with or without parents’ support may have crucial implications for adult children’s marital well-being. In general, prior research on Western samples has demonstrated that parental favorable attitude toward adult children’s marriage or spouse (e.g., approval and acceptance) is positively associated with adult children’s marital satisfaction, stability, and commitment, whereas parental unsupportive attitude (e.g., disapproval and rejection) is negatively associated with adult children’s marital outcomes (Bryan, Fitzpatrick, Crawford, & Fischer, 2001; Bryant & Conger, 1999; Felmlee, 2001; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1992). Several mechanisms have been proposed for making sense of such associations (Parks, 2007; Sprecher et al., 2002). When parents hold favorable attitude toward adult children’s spouse or marriage, they are more likely to provide the couple with (a) (non)tangible support ameliorating intradyadic stress (e.g., taking care of grandchildren), (b) acknowledgment enhancing couple identity (e.g., inviting partners as a pair to family events), and (c) validating comments promoting feelings of contentment with the relationship (e.g., telling partners that they are a perfect match). However, when parents have unsupportive attitude toward adult children’s spouse or marriage, these processes are likely to unfold in an opposite direction and thus impair children’s marital bond.

Although the mechanisms derived based on Western samples may also apply to the association between parental attitude and adult children’s marital well-being in China, some factors that may be unique to Chinese marriage and families should be noted. Due to the previously noted filial piety traditions (Whyte, 2004), parental attitude has long played critical roles in shaping Chinese adult children’s mate selection and marital lives (Pimentel, 2000; Riley, 1994; Xu & Whyte, 1990; Zhang & Kline, 2009). Although in the past few decades Chinese young adults have obtained more and more personal freedom in personal lives (Pimentel, 2000), respecting parents’ opinions and tending to parents’ needs are still among the highly valued virtues in China, and Chinese parents remain actively involved (yet not as extensive and intense as before) in adult children’s mate selection and marital lives in various ways such as introducing partners, offering advice, setting barriers when disliking children’s partner, providing supports to married children when necessary, and intervening in children’s marital conflicts.

Chinese married youths may also expect and need parents’ involvements in their marital lives due to practical considerations: the extremely high prices of houses and the tight housing conditions in China, the need for childcare assistance in dual-career couple families, and the need for family to serve as an eldercare institution (Chen, 2005; Logan & Bian, 1999; Logan, Bian, & Bian, 1998; Riley, 1994; Zhang, 2004). When Chinese parents hold favorable attitude toward their adult children’s marriage, they are more likely to provide support to adult children and children-in-law by sharing houses, lending money, taking care of grandchildren, and reducing eldercare burdens. Thus, in the contemporary Chinese society, a mixture of traditional norms and strategic responses to socioeconomic circumstances has jointly contributed to the continuing parental involvement and influences in adult children’s marriage.

In-law relationship quality and adult children’s marital satisfaction

Typically, a spouse automatically gains in-laws upon marriage, suggesting that an involuntary relationship is formed between the spouse and in-laws with the other partner in the couple serving as a “linchpin” (Morr Serewicz, 2008). Thus, the most defining characteristics of in-law relationship are triadic and involuntary. Also because of the ambiguity inherent within in-law relationships (i.e., unclear role expectations) and the dilemma of in-law relationships (i.e., simultaneously being strangers and kin), it is usually difficult for in-laws to get along with each other (Morr Serewicz, 2006; Morr Serewicz & Hosmer, 2011). In addition, prevailing negative stereotypes and pejorative media portrayals of in-law relationships, especially the relationship between MIL and DIL, might be internalized by children-in-law and parents-in-law, which also may contribute to their fears and worries about in-law relationships. These expectations may, consciously or unconsciously, shape subsequent in-law relationships (Fingerman et al., 2012).

Precipitated by internal difficulties and external contexts, the tension between parents-in-law and children-in-law may generate great stress for adult children’s marital relationship and ultimately impair their conjugal well-being. Research based on samples of Western couples living in different times has showed that a number of spouses attribute some critical problems in their marriage to the difficulties with parents-in-law (Cotterill, 1994; Duvall, 1954; Fischer, 1983; Merrill, 2007) and that there is a positive association between spouses’ relationship quality with parents-in-law and their marital well-being in both the early and the later stages of marriage (Bryant et al., 2001; Timmer & Veroff, 2000). When relationships between children-in-law and parents-in-law are unhappy, parents-in-law might be (a) less likely to provide support to their adult children and children-in-law, (b) more likely to have conflicts with adult children and children-in-law, (c) more likely to set barriers to prevent children-in-law from successfully assimilating into the extended families, and (d) more likely to interfere in adult children’s family issues. These processes may harm adult children’s marital well-being via (a) draining resources that they may otherwise devote to relationship maintenance, (b) inducing conflicts and eroding positive exchanges between partners, and (c) impairing their physical and psychological health.

Although in-law relationships universally hold implications for adult children’s marital ties across different cultures, there are good reasons to believe that Chinese couples’ conjugal well-being may be more susceptible to the influences of in-law relationships. As noted already, the traditions of extended family coresidence (Zhang, 2004) and filial piety (Whyte, 2004) in Chinese society increase the interdependence between adult children’s marital lives and their parents’/parents-in-law’s lives. Along with this often an increased likelihood of in-law relationship problems that may negatively affect adult children’s marital well-being. Indeed, in-law relationship issues have been rated by Chinese spouses as major problems that hold critical implications for their personal and conjugal well-being (e.g., Pfeifer, Miller, Li, & Hsiao, 2013). Having conflicts with parents-in-law is often a trigger for or contributor to Chinese married adult children’s suicide attempts (Pearson, Phillips, He, & Ji, 2002), depression (Gao, Chan, You, & Li, 2010), intimate partner violence (Chan, Brownridge, Tiwari, Fong, & Leung, 2008), and marital distress (Song & Zhang, 2012; Wu et al., 2010).

Parental attitude, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction

The association between either parental attitude or in-law relationship quality and adult children’s marital well-being has been somewhat well (yet separately) documented (at least among Western couples), as if the two network factors were independent of each other. However, an emerging (yet slim) body of research has suggested that parental attitude toward their adult children’s marriage or spouse may affect children-in-law’s assimilation processes into the extended families by influencing the establishment of their in-group status (i.e., the identity as “genuine” family members) and their perceived relational uncertainty in in-law dyads (e.g., doubts regarding the future of the relationship) (Mikucki-Enyart, 2011; Mikucki-Enyart & Caughlin, 2015; Mikucki-Enyart et al., 2015; Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008; Prentice, 2008).

Thus, it seems possible that entering marriage with or without parental favorable attitudes could foreshadow whether or not the future in-law relationships would be harmonious. Moreover, when parents hold negative attitude toward their adult children’s marriage or spouse, all the aforementioned difficulties inherent within in-law relationships might be amplified (e.g., more frequent and intense in-law conflicts, increased likelihood of treating each other as rivals and outsiders), which may, in turn, set in motion a cascade of processes that sow the seeds of the long-term fate of adult children’s conjugal ties (e.g., draining time, energy, and resources that couples may otherwise devote to their relationship maintenance). Simply put, it seems warranted to expect that in-law relationship quality could be one of the key mechanisms via which the effects of parental attitude on their adult children’s marital well-being occur, or parental attitude might be one of the critical antecedents of adult children’s future in-law relationship quality.

The particularly salient role of the relationship quality between MIL and DIL

Various in-law dyads (i.e., MIL and DIL, MIL and SIL, FIL and DIL, and FIL and SIL) are simultaneously considered in the current study, which provides an opportunity to clarify potential gender differences in the relative implications of different in-law relationships for adult children’s marital well-being. Although different parent–child in-law dyads generally hold implications for adult children’s conjugal ties (Bryant et al., 2001; Willson, Shuey, & Elder, 2003), there are good reasons to expect that the relationship between DIL and MIL may have particularly salient influences on adult children’s marital well-being (Cotterill, 1994; Fischer, 1983; Merrill, 2007; Morr Serewicz, 2006; Rittenour & Kellas, 2015). In general, Western research has suggested that the importance of the relationship between MIL and DIL may be partly due to the facts that as compared to men, women (a) are more relationship-oriented (Gilligan, 1982), (b) have identities that are more rooted in the ethics of caring for and connecting to others (Bilsker, Schiedel, & Marcia, 1988), and (c) are often the primary linkage in kinship structures (i.e., the kin-keepers) (McCann, 2012).

As to Chinese marriages and families in particular, consistent with the long-standing patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal traditions (Chen, 2005; Lavely & Ren, 1992; Logan & Bian, 2005; Pimentel, 2000; Shek, 2006; Watson, 1991; Zhang, 2004), Chinese women often marry into the husbands’ families as both a wife and a caregiver for their husbands, children, and elder parents-in-law on a daily basis (Cong & Silverstein, 2008; Liu, Dong, & Zheng, 2010; Pimentel, 2000; Whyte, 2004; Zhang, 2004). In contrast, daughters’ contacts with their natal families often become much less frequent after getting married, and they tend to provide supplementary support to their own parents primarily via emotional connections (Kim, Cheng, Zarit, & Fingerman, 2015). As such, it seems warranted to expect that stronger relational connections and more intertwined lives are more likely to exist between husbands’ parents and their married sons and DIL rather than between wives’ parents and their married daughters and SIL.

Furthermore, in China, husbands’ mothers often play a supervisor or monitor role in their adult children’s marital lives. As an experienced hand and with the power granted by Chinese traditional culture (e.g., filial piety), husbands’ mothers may hold the beliefs that they are responsible for training their DIL to become “good” wives, mothers, and DIL (Gallin, 1994; Shih & Pyke, 2010; Stacey, 1983). Thus, they often tend to be highly involved in married adult children’s marital problems, housekeeping work, and childrearing labor via various pathways (e.g., providing childcare assistance, intervening in marital conflicts, and instructing and commenting on DILs’ housework and parenting practice). Thus, there seems to be a higher likelihood for stress, tension, and irritation between DIL and MIL than between other in-law parties in Chinese families. Taken altogether, the relationship issues between MIL and DIL in Chinese families may constitute a greater hazard to adult children’s marital well-being than the other in-law relationships (Song & Zhang, 2012; Wu et al., 2010).

Method

Study design and sample characteristics

This study is based on data from a larger project named Chinese Newlyweds Longitudinal Study (CNLS). At Time 1, sampling was undertaken to identify couples who were within 3 years of their wedding, in their first marriage, without children, and living together in Beijing. Eligible couples were recruited by research assistants from the study’s home institution. They were trained to contact acquaintances to locate eligible couples and post announcements on websites or in communities to call for couples. Ultimately, 268 couples participated in this study.

Of the 268 couples, data from three couples were deleted because one or both spouses’ parents died before their marriages. Thus, the sample for the current study was comprised of 530 partners in 265 couples. These couples had been married a mean of 13.66 months (SD = 9.73). Husbands and wives were on average 29.60 (SD = 3.26) and 28.09 years old (SD = 2.51), respectively. The modal level of education for both husbands and wives was a bachelor’s degree (4 years of college). The median levels of monthly income for husbands and wives were 7,000 RMB (SD = 6211.94, approximately US$1,071.37) and 5,000 RMB (SD = 3985.61, approximately US$765.27), respectively. Based on the available Chinese census data at the year of data collection (Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, 2011; National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, 2011), the average annual wage of the employed people living in Beijing was 65,683 RMB (around 5,473 RMB monthly), and almost 35% of the employed people in Beijing had received education of college-level or above.

One year after the Time 1 assessment, 223 of the 265 couples participated in the Time 2 assessment, resulting in an 84.15% retention rate. Two years after the Time 1 assessment, 200 of the 265 couples participated in the Time 3 assessment, resulting in a 75.47% retention rate. Independent samples t tests (attrited vs. retained) were conducted on the variables of interest that were available at Time 1. Among eight pairs of comparisons, there were two significant differences between attrited and retained husbands: M _attrited = 3.73, SD _attrited = .91, M _retained = 4.09, SD _retained = .72, t = 2.85, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .44 for the relationship quality with FILs; and M _attrited = 6.03, SD _attrited = 1.21, M _retained = 6.47, SD _retained = .92, t = 2.71, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .41 for marital satisfaction. It should be noted that at the first wave, a single item was utilized to ask spouses to rate their relationship quality with parents-in-law (MILs and FILs separately) on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). The score for this single item was only used in attrition analyses. At the second wave, a more established and valid multiple-item measure was used to assess in-law relationship quality, and the scores for that measure were used in the primary analyses.

At each wave, data were collected using a series of self-report surveys. Both husbands and wives were invited to the lab at the study’s home institution to participate in the study. For couples who could not come to the lab, research assistants collected the data by means of a home visit. First, the study was described in general terms by research assistants and the signed written informed consent form was obtained from each participating couple. Then, husbands and wives separately completed measures. Each couple was paid 100 RMB (approximately US$15) for their participation in the survey part of the study and received a small gift at each wave.

Measures

Measures used in the current study, except for the one assessing parental attitude and those measuring covariates, were originally developed for American couples. A team of graduate students majoring in human development and family studies who are fluent in both Chinese and English first translated these measures into Mandarin, and then another team of bilingual graduate students back-translated them into English. Researchers worked with translators to revise items as needed until it was evident that the Chinese items had meanings equivalent to the English items. All Mandarin version measures were also sent out to professors with expertise in Chinese marriage studies for suggestions. We repeated this process until no new suggestions were made. Cronbach’s αs are reported in Table 1.

Table 1.
Descriptive statistics, correlations, and Cronbach’s αs for the study variables.

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. T₁ HPS —

2. T₁ WPS .259* —

3. T₂ HRML .227* .194 —

4. T₂ WRML .379* .225 .088 —

5. T₂ HRFL .256* .177* .623* .087 —

6. T₂ WRFL .328* .171* .094 .802*** .187* —

7. T₁ HMS .350* .239* .152* .246*** .127^† .148* —

8. T₁ WMS .295* .406* .047 .385* .075 .229 .373* —

9. T₃ HMS .320* .229 .321* .295* .291* .245 .358* .319* —

10. T₃ WMS .253* .163* .244 .384* .192* .278* .215 .301* .543* —

M 4.422 4.113 2.908 2.709 2.968 2.757 6.365 6.279 6.100 5.995

SD .742 .730 .485 .514 .466 .466 1.013 1.100 1.078 1.269

Cronbach’s α — — .895 .912 .868 .888 .926 .950 .956 .972

Note. HPS = husbands’ perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s current marriage, WPS = wives’ perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s current marriage, HMS = husbands’ marital satisfaction, WMS = wives’ marital satisfaction, HRML = husbands’ perceived relationship quality with their MILs, HRFL = husbands’ perceived relationship quality with their FILs, WRML = wives’ perceived relationship quality with their MILs, WRFL = wives’ perceived relationship quality with their FILs, MIL = mother-in-law, FIL = father-in-law, SD = standard deviation, T₁ = the first time point, T₂ = the second time point, and T₃ = the third time point. To simplify presentation, correlations between covariates and key model variables are not reported in the table but available in the Online Appendix.

^† p < .10; p < .05; p < .01; p < .001 (two-tailed).

Parental attitude toward adult children’s marriage

At the first wave, parents’ attitude toward adult children’s marriage was assessed by one item asking adult children “Overall, how do you think of your parents’ attitude toward your current marriage?” Response options for this item ranged from 1 (very satisfied) to 5 (very dissatisfied). After reverse coding item values, higher scores indicated higher levels of parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage. Similar single-item measures have been used in prior research to assess parents’ attitude toward adult children’s marriage or close relationships and yielded meaningful findings (e.g., Felmlee, 2001). Although prior research has suggested that single-item measures are not necessarily less reliable or valid than multiple-item measures (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001), the utilization of such a single-item measure may diminish the credibility of our findings.

In-law relationship quality

At the second wave of data collection, a 20-item measure modified from the “intimacy and tension” subscale in the Stryker Adjustment Checklist (Stryker, 1955) was used to assess spouses’ perceived in-law relationship quality. The items of the modified measure asked spouses to indicate the degree to which statements may apply to their relationship status with their parents-in-law on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (very much) (e.g., “We rarely argue or fight.” “I cannot always tell him/her what I think.” “I rarely call on him/her for help.”). For each item, spouses were asked to rate their relationship status with MILs and FILs separately. Ten of the 20 items were negatively worded. After reverse coding the scores for these items, I calculated the mean scores of the 20 items and used the mean scores in analyses. Thus, higher scores indicated higher levels of relationship quality with MILs or FILs.

Marital satisfaction

The 6-item unidimensional Quality Marriage Index (Norton, 1983) was used to assess marital satisfaction across different waves of data collection. The first 5 items asked spouses to indicate their agreement with statements such as “My relationship with my partner makes me happy.” on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (very strong disagreement) to 7 (very strong agreement). The last item asked spouses to indicate how happy they are in their marriage when all things were considered on a 10-point scale from 1 (very unhappy) to 10 (perfectly happy). Mean scores were calculated and used in analyses. Higher scores indicated higher levels of relationship satisfaction.

Covariates

Informed by prior studies (Golish, 2000; Logan & Bian, 2005; Norwood & Webb, 2006; Song & Zhang, 2012), a series of potential confounding variables were controlled for as covariates, including parent–adult child coresidence status, relationship quality between adult children and their own parents, adult children’s beliefs regarding parents’ power in children’s marriage, adult children’s beliefs regarding the importance of parents as compared to spouses, adult children’s beliefs regarding children’s compliance to parents, and adult children’s perceived parents’ and parents-in-law’s interferences in their marital lives. In addition, given the characteristics of the current sample and the fact that many couples tend to experience notable changes in relationship well-being across the transition to parenthood, we also treated pregnancy status and parental status as covariates. Measures of these covariates are either single-item question or multiple-item surveys developed particularly for the CNLS. Due to space limit, description of these measures was not provided here but available in the Online Appendix.

Analytic approach and procedures

Structural equation modeling via Mplus Version 7.11 was utilized to test hypotheses. We tested several APIMeMs (Ledermann et al., 2011) with LDSs (McArdle, 2009) across three annual waves of data (Maxwell et al., 2011), in which adult married children’s perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage was linked to the changes in adult children’s own and partners’ marital satisfaction through adult married children’s perceived relationship quality with parents-in-law.

Although the ultimate goal of the present analyses was to estimate a model in which all four types of in-law relationships are simultaneously included in a single model, to more clearly demonstrate the importance of considering all four types of in-law relationships, we conducted the analyses following a three-step procedure: (a) a model with only relationship quality with MIL as mediators, (b) a model with only relationship quality with FIL as mediators, and (c) a model with both relationship quality with MIL and with FIL as mediators.

The APIMeM not only can account for the possible interdependence in couple dyadic data but also can produce the specific indirect effect for each mediator when there are multiple ones in a single model, allowing researchers to pit mediators against one another to examine their relative influences on the outcomes. Across all models in the present study, indirect effects were assessed using bootstrapping, a state-of-the-art technique for detecting indirect effects that does not make assumptions about the sampling distribution of the indirect effect and provides more accurate Type I error rates and greater power for detecting indirect effects (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). In the current study, the bias-corrected bootstrapped SEs and CIs for indirect effects were based on 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Conclusions regarding mediation are based on whether or not the indirect pathways are statistically significant when examining 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped CIs around all the unstandardized indirect associations.

We examined the changes in spouses’ marital satisfaction across measurement occasions via the second-order LDS models (McArdle, 2009). By integrating the advantages of the latent growth curve and the autoregressive analyses, the dual-change LDS model offers a rigorous and powerful way of capturing change in levels of a variable while controlling for the effects of initial status of the variable on change over time. According to the standard LDS model application procedures, the two components of the dual-change model consist of (a) a growth parameter reflecting the change in level of the variable across two measurement occasions and (b) an autoregressive component that estimates the effect of the initial status of the variable on itself at the subsequent measurement occasion. Following the recommendations (Maxwell et al., 2011), we conducted temporally ordered prospective analyses using assessments of putative predictors, mediators, and outcomes across three annual waves of data collection.

The adequacy of models was evaluated using the following indices (Kline, 2011): the chi-square statistic (χ²), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR). Models with nonsignificant χ² values, CFI values > .90, RMSEA values < .05, and SRMR values < .05 were considered to have an acceptable fit. Lastly, missing values in the present study were primarily due to unavailability of data from a specific wave, which were addressed using the full information maximum likelihood estimation (Acock, 2005).

Results

Bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics for study variables are shown in Table 1. At the bivariate level, spouses’ perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage, relationship quality with parents-in-law, and marital satisfaction were positively interrelated with each other. All used measures had adequate reliabilities when applicable.

The model with only relationship quality with FIL as mediators

This model with only relationship quality with FIL as mediators had an adequate fit: χ² = 161.568, df = 146, p = .179, CFI = .933, the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .957, RMSEA = .020 with 90% CI [.000, .036], and SRMR = .053 (see Figure 2). Parameter estimates, bootstrapped SEs, and 95% CIs for each indirect effect were calculated. The significant indirect associations linking spouses’ perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage (i.e., HPS and WPS) and the changes in spouses’ reports of marital satisfaction (i.e., T₁–T₃ husbands’ marital satisfaction [HMS] changes and T₁–T₃ wives’ marital satisfaction [WMS] changes) via spouses’ relationship quality with their FIL (i.e., T₂ husbands’ perceived relationship quality with their FIL [HRFL] and T₂ wives’ perceived relationship quality with their FIL [WRFL]) included the following pathways: T₁ HPS → T₂ HRFL → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .098, SE = .053, 95% CI [.025, .234], β = .061); T₁ HPS → T₂ WRFL → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .078, SE = .040, 95% CI [.016, .180], β = .049); T₁ HPS → T₂ WRFL → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .099, SE = .052, 95% CI [.022, .235], β = .051); and T₁ WPS → T₂ HRFL → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .056, SE = .033, 95% CI [.002, .138], β = .034).

Figure 2.
The model with spouses’ relationship quality with only FILs as mediators. Note. All estimated parameters are standardized and the statistic values in the parentheses are SEs. For clarity, (a) pathways with p > .10 are depicted in grey dash lines; (b) pathways with .05 < p < .10 are depicted in black dash lines; (c) pathways with p < .05 are depicted in black solid lines; and (d) parameter estimates for the pathways from the covariates to the outcome variables are not reported in this figure but available in the Online Appendix. T₁ = the first time point, T₂ = the second time point, and T₃ = the third time point. ^† p < .10; p < .05; p < .01; p < .001 (two-tailed). FIL = father-in-law; SE = standard error.

The model with only relationship quality with MIL as mediators

This model with only relationship quality with MIL as mediators had an adequate fit: χ² = 148.304, df = 145, p = .408, CFI = .987, TLI = .991, RMSEA = .009 with 90% CI [.000, .031], and SRMR = .050 (see Figure 3). Parameter estimates, bootstrapped SEs, and 95% CIs for each indirect effect were calculated. The significant indirect associations linking spouses’ perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage (i.e., HPS and WPS) and the changes in spouses’ reports of marital satisfaction (i.e., T₁–T₃ HMS changes and T₁–T₃ WMS changes) via spouses’ perceived relationship quality with MIL (i.e., T₂ husbands’ perceived relationship quality with their MIL [HRML] and T₂ wives’ perceived relationship quality with their MIL [WRML]) included the following pathways: T₁ HPS → T₂ HRML → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .071, SE =, 95% CI [.017, .168], β = .044); T₁ HPS → T₂ HRML → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .058, SE =, 95% CI [.009, .163], β = .031); T₁ HPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .091, SE =, 95% CI [.023, .198], β = .056); T₁ HPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .179, SE =, 95% CI [.079, .337], β = .094); T₁ WPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .084, SE =, 95% CI [.024, .197], β = .043); T₁ WPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .043, SE =, 95% CI [.008, .122], β = .026); and T₁ WPS → T₂ HRML → T₁–T₃ HMS changes (B = .056, SE =, 95% CI [.001, .145], β = .034).

Figure 3.
The model with spouses’ relationship quality with only MILs as mediators. Note. All estimated parameters are standardized and the statistic values in the parentheses are SEs. For clarity, (a) pathways with p > .10 are depicted in grey dashed lines; (b) pathways with .05 < p < .10 are depicted in black dashed lines; (c) pathways with p < .05 are depicted in black solid lines; and (d) parameter estimates for the pathways from the covariates to the outcome variables are not reported in this figure but available in the Online Appendix. T₁ = the first time point, T₂ = the second time point, and T₃ = the third time point. ^† p < .10, p < .05, p < .01, p < .001 (two-tailed). MIL: mother-in-law; SE = standard error.

The model with relationship quality with both FIL and MIL as mediators

This model with relationship quality with both FIL and MIL as mediators had an adequate fit: χ² = 206.675, df = 186, p = .143, CFI = .966, TLI = .973, RMSEA = .020 with 90% CI [.000, .035], and SRMR = .058 (see Figure 4). Parameter estimates, bootstrapped SEs, and 95% CIs for each indirect effect were calculated. The significant indirect associations linking spouses’ perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage and the changes in spouses’ reports of marital satisfaction via spouses’ perceived relationship quality with parents-in-law include the following pathways: T₁ HPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .233, SE = .095, 95% CI [.091, .484], β = .120) and T₁ WPS → T₂ WRML → T₁–T₃ WMS changes (B = .112, SE = .063, 95% CI [.026, .282], β = .056).

Figure 4.
The model with spouses’ relationship quality with both FILs and MILs as mediators. Note. All estimated parameters are standardized and the statistic values in the parentheses are SEs. For clarity, (a) pathways with p > .10 are depicted in grey dashed lines; (b) pathways with .05 < p < .10 are depicted in black dashed lines; (c) pathways with p < .05 are depicted in black solid lines; and (d) parameter estimates for the pathways from the covariates to the outcome variables are not reported in this figure but available in the Online Appendix. T₁ = the first time point, T₂ = the second time point, and T₃ = the third time point. ^† p < .10, p < .05, p < .01, p < .001 (two-tailed). FIL = father-in-law; MIL: mother-in-law; SE = standard error.

Discussion

Based on three annual waves of data from Chinese couples during the early years of marriage and utilizing a dyadic mediational model, this study represents one of the very first steps in examining how adult children’s perceived parental attitude toward adult children’s marriage and in-law relationship quality may operate in conjunction with each other to shape the development of adult children’s marital satisfaction. Furthermore, the present study goes beyond the emphasis on the relationship between DIL and MIL in prior research by including both FIL and SIL in analyses, which contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the association between in-law relationship and adult children’s conjugal well-being.

Consistent with previous research based on samples of Western couples, we found that there was a positive association between adult children’s perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage and the changes in adult children’s marital satisfaction (Bryant & Conger, 1999; Felmlee, 2001; Parks, 2007; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1992) and that there was a positive association between adult children’s perceived relationship quality with parents-in-law and the changes in adult children’s marital satisfaction (Bryant et al., 2001; Timmer & Veroff, 2000). It should be noted that the present study complements and extends prior research by replicating such associations in a sample of Chinese couples and that, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study particularly examining such associations in a collectivistic cultural context. In contrast to the notable body of theoretical work discussing the critical roles of family-of-origin factors in shaping Chinese adult children’s marital well-being (Lavely & Ren, 1992; Riley, 1994; Shek, 2006; Stacey, 1983; Watson, 1991; Whyte, 2004), efforts devoted to obtain empirical evidence remain quite sparse (Pimentel, 2000; Wu et al., 2010; Zhang & Kline, 2009). Thus, this study adds to an emerging yet limited body of research aiming at narrowing this gap.

Furthermore, the current results also indicate that the quality of the relationship between parents-in-law (either MIL or FIL) and children-in-law (either DIL or SIL) was among the key mechanisms via which adult children’s perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage predicted the subsequent changes in adult children’s marital satisfaction. Such findings provide empirical evidence supporting the theoretical proposition derived from Western research (Mikucki-Enyart & Caughlin, 2015; Mikucki-Enyart et al., 2015; Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008; Morr Serewicz et al., 2008; Prentice, 2008) that entering marriage with or without parental supportive attitude may foreshadow whether or not parents-in-law and children-in-law would get along well with each other, and the in-law relationship quality may, in turn, sow the seeds of the fate of adult children’s conjugal ties. In addition, this finding also suggests that the quality of the in-law relationships involving male figures (i.e., FIL or SIL) also could serve as mediators for the association between adult children’s perceived parental satisfaction with adult children’s marriage and the changes in adult children’s marital satisfaction, raising concerns surrounding the almost exclusive emphasis on the relationship between MIL and DIL in prior relevant Western research (Cotterill, 1994; Fischer, 1983; Merrill, 2007; Morr Serewicz, 2006; Rittenour & Kellas, 2015) and Chinese research (Gallin, 1994; Song, & Zhang, 2012; Wu et al., 2010).

The most important contribution of the present study is that various in-law dyads were simultaneously considered and thus provides an opportunity to clarify gender differences in the relative implications of different in-law relationships for adult children’s marital well-being. Consistent with our prediction, the quality of the relationship between DIL and MIL played a particularly salient mediating role above and beyond the mediating effects of the quality of the other parent–child in-law relationships. This finding highlights the importance of conducting research on in-law relationships involving female figures as well as male figures to obtain increased specificity in our understanding of the association between in-law relationship and adult children’s marital well-being (Morr Serewicz, 2006; Morr Serewicz & Hosmer, 2011).

Such a salient role of the relationship quality between DIL and MIL may be a product of a mixture of the gender role differences in general and Chinese cultural traditions in particular. Women, especially mothers, as compared to men are more likely to be the focus points in family configurations and engage in kin-keeper roles and activities maintaining extended family ties such as exchanging supports, making phone calls, sending cards, and hosting parties (McCann, 2012). Given such a gendered tendency, when everything being equal, in-law relationships involving two female figures may be particularly influential in shaping family dynamics. Moreover, the following Chinese cultural traditions further draw our attention to the relationship between MIL and DIL: the patrilocal extended coresidence arrangements (Logan & Bian, 2005; Watson, 1991), the primary daily caregiver role of wives for husbands’ elder parents (Cong & Silverstein, 2008; Liu et al., 2010; Whyte, 2004), as well as husbands’ mothers’ generally high tendency to intervene in married sons’ family lives (Gallin, 1994; Shih & Pyke, 2010; Stacey, 1983; Wei & Zhang, 2011).

Taken altogether, the findings of the present study have important theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, findings of this study highlight the importance of (a) representing families as configurations of interdependent relationships organized across multiple households (Milardo, 2010; Widmer, 2010), (b) going beyond the consideration of dyads to address triads when examining couple relationship well-being (Duck, Foley, & Kirkpatrick, 2006), and (c) examining couple relationship well-being and its determinants from an ecological, social network perspective (Huston, 2000; Sprecher, 2011). From a practical perspective, given the steeper decline of marital satisfaction and the higher divorce rate during the stressful early transitional years of marriage, and also considering the task of forming an autonomous nuclear family while also maintaining connection to families-of-origin in this early marital stage, our findings provide unique insights for the development of more effective early marital intervention programs (at least for Chinese couples). It is important to pay special attention in early marital interventions to newlyweds entering marriage without parents’ blessing. Helping these couples build nurturing in-law relationships, especially the relationship between MIL and DIL, may hold promise for diminishing or even offsetting the potential deleterious influences of parental unfavorable attitude may exert on their marital adjustment because one of the major mediating pathways is broken.

Limitations and directions for future research

Limitations of the present study and possible avenues for future inquiries should be noted. First, the present study was based on a sample of Chinese couples in the early years of marriage and living in economically developed urban areas. Partners in these couples had higher levels of SEs than did the broader population in the recruitment areas as compared to the census data from the year of data collection, and the current sampling processes were not probability based. Thus, our findings should be cautiously generalized to Chinese couples in other marital stages, living in rural areas, and having lower levels of SEs. Research with more diverse samples is warranted.

Second, although China is well on the collectivist side of the individualism–collectivism continuum, there may be within-culture variation in spouses’ orientations toward collectivistic cultural traditions, which may affect how partners assign meanings to familial and marital relationships. Unfortunately, we did not measure relevant constructs. Future research will benefit from exploring if the examined associations vary as a function of these variables. For example, the effects of parental attitude and in-law relationship on adult children’s marital well-being may be more salient for those more endorsing collectivistic cultural traditions.

Third, parental attitude and in-law relationship quality in the current study were reported only by adult children. Future research should assess these constructs from both adult children and their parents or parents-in-law. This will allow researchers to measure constructs more adequately, minimize share-informant variance biases, and examine how the discrepancy or interactions between different social network members’ attitude may affect adult children’s marital well-being. For example, the negative effects of some network members’ disapproval might be buffered by the positive effects of other network members’ approval, and the worst situation might be entering marriage without anyone’s blessing.

Fourth, there have been various ways researchers approach conceptualizing and measuring parents’ attitude toward adult children’s marriage or spouse (e.g., approval or disapproval, rejection or acceptance, and satisfaction or dissatisfaction). In the present study, we assessed parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s marriage, as it may represent the overall sentiment that parents had for adult children’s marriage. However, future research will benefit from assessing multiple indicators of this construct simultaneously, which allows researchers to more adequately measure parental attitude and to examine the relative roles of different aspects of parental attitude in predicting adult children’s conjugal outcomes. Relatedly, we also cautiously acknowledge that using the single-item measure to assess parental attitude may diminish the credibility of our findings. A more comprehensive, multiple-item measure should be used to more adequately capture the variability inherent within this construct.

Fifth, some of the literature cited in the current study seem to be relatively dated (yet highly relevant). This is simply because research particularly focusing on the examined associations and also published within the recent years is quite limited. Given the profound social changes that the world has experienced during the past few years, it seems warranted to expect that the macrolevel social changes may affect the microlevel dynamics within families by shaping people’s values and beliefs. Thus, there may be some biases in our conceptualizations and interpretations in the current study. Moreover, systematically examining how social changes may shape the associations among parental attitude, in-law relationship, and adult children’s marriage in Chinese society constitutes a promising direction for future research.

Sixth, a series of potential confounding covariates was controlled for in analyses. However, it should be noted that measures assessing these covariates were either single-item question or multiple-item surveys developed particularly for the larger project from which the present sample was derived. As such, some construct might not be adequately represented or measured. For example, given the important roles of filial piety in shaping parent–child relationship in Chinese culture, we controlled for several factors assessed by single-item questions that might reflect or be closely related to children’s filial piety behaviors and beliefs (i.e., children’s personal beliefs with respect to parents’ power in adult children’s marriage, the relative importance of parents as compared to their spouses, and children’s compliance to parents). Nevertheless, future research will benefit from utilizing more comprehensive measures with more established reliabilities and validities to more adequately assess critical covariates such as filial piety and to see if the associations examined in the current study still hold.

Lastly, as the present study was not conducted with an experimental design, some alternative hypotheses cannot be ruled out. For example, we did not particularly instruct partners in a couple not talk with each other about the study between data collections. If they discussed the study with each other, it is possible that some focal factors might be intervened. For example, spouses might realize problems in their in-law or marital relationship via discussion after participation and then try to improve them; furthermore, the improved in-law or marital relationship then might alter parents’ attitude toward adult children’s marriage. That is, the examined factors may be reciprocally related with each other over time. Alternative hypotheses like this should be tested in future research.

Supplementary material

Supplementary_appendix - Chinese adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s marriage, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction

Supplementary_appendix for Chinese adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s marriage, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction by Hongjian Cao, Mark Fine, Xiaoyi Fang, and Nan Zhou in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. T₁ HPS	—
2. T₁ WPS	.259***	—
3. T₂ HRML	.227***	.194**	—
4. T₂ WRML	.379***	.225**	.088	—
5. T₂ HRFL	.256***	.177*	.623***	.087	—
6. T₂ WRFL	.328***	.171*	.094	.802***	.187*	—
7. T₁ HMS	.350***	.239***	.152*	.246***	.127^†	.148*	—
8. T₁ WMS	.295***	.406***	.047	.385***	.075	.229**	.373***	—
9. T₃ HMS	.320***	.229**	.321***	.295***	.291***	.245**	.358***	.319***	—
10. T₃ WMS	.253***	.163*	.244**	.384***	.192*	.278***	.215**	.301***	.543***	—
M	4.422	4.113	2.908	2.709	2.968	2.757	6.365	6.279	6.100	5.995
SD	.742	.730	.485	.514	.466	.466	1.013	1.100	1.078	1.269
Cronbach’s α	—	—	.895	.912	.868	.888	.926	.950	.956	.972

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no 31571157) to Xiaoyi Fang and also by a starting-up seed grant for newly introduced young scholars from Guangzhou University (no 27000503163) to Hongjian Cao.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material for this article is available online.

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