Mothers' and Fathers' Adherence to “Maternal Love”: Interactions With Their Marital Satisfaction and Parenting Style

Abstract

In the present study, effects of mothers' and fathers' adherence to “maternal love” on their marital satisfaction and parenting style were examined from a family systemic perspective. Questionnaires on adherence of “maternal love,” marital satisfaction, and parenting style were completed separately by 304 couples with children from 2 to 6 years old, and the hypothesized model that parents' adherence to “maternal love” affected marital satisfaction and parenting style was examined. The results suggested that fathers' marital satisfaction was not affected by either their own or their partners' adherence to “maternal love”. On the other hand, an interaction was found between fathers' and mothers' adherence to “maternal love” and mothers' marital satisfaction. That is, for those couples both of whom gave lower ratings as to their adherence to “maternal love,” the mothers evaluated their marital satisfaction higher, whereas for those couples who were inconsistent in their adherence to “maternal love”, and in which the fathers rated it higher and the mothers lower, the mothers reported lower marital satisfaction. The results from the questions on parenting style suggested that the fathers' marital satisfaction was related to their responsivity and controlling attitude toward their children. Moreover, the fathers' adherence to “maternal love” was related to higher responsivity and a lower controlling attitude. For the mothers, interaction of the fathers' and mothers' adherence to “maternal love” revealed the same trend in the mothers' responsivity data as it did in the data on their marital satisfaction. That is, a congruence between the fathers' and the mothers' adherence to “maternal love” at a high level was related to higher maternal responsivity, whereas an incongruent adherence to “maternal love”, in which the fathers evaluated it higher than the mothers, was related to a lower level of maternal responsivity. These findings suggest that effects on marital satisfaction and parenting style of adherence to “maternal love” differ between mothers and fathers. © 2013, The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology. All rights reserved.