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Winds of time and place: How context has affected a 50–year marriage
Author(s) -
Levinger George,
Levinger Ann Cotton
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/1475-6811.00051
Subject(s) - luck , affect (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , social psychology , psychology , social environment , sociology , developmental psychology , geography , epistemology , social science , communication , philosophy , archaeology
To examine the effects of contexts on a relationship, we consider the case of our own 50–year marriage and its preliminaries. We employ a three–level conception of a couple's environment. The macrocontext refers to the prevailing cultural winds in a society that affect all its residents during any given historical era. The mesocontext pertains to the settings in which a particular relationship operates, such as its family and other social networks, physical habitats, work settings, or institutional associations, often chosen by the partners themselves. The microcontext is the pair's own intimate environment, constructed over time by the partners’ unique interactions. Each of these contexts has affected us. We describe and analyze instances of luck, choice, and dyadic interaction in our 52–year relationship.