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Couples Who Live Apart: Time/Place Disjunctions And Their Consequences *
Author(s) -
Gross Harriet Engel
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1980.3.2.69
Subject(s) - residence , norm (philosophy) , social psychology , marital status , classification of discontinuities , sociology , psychology , demography , political science , mathematics , law , mathematical analysis , population
Couples who live apart present a unique opportunity to study the consequences of tampering with our culture's marital co‐residence norm. Interviews with 37 spouses, representing members of 21 couples who are legally married and who live apart in service to career demands of both, suggest that time and place discontinuities result from two residence living. Two residences mean that spouses are not able to mesh and coordinate time schedules, nor do they share the common base of their co‐resident counterparts. The time/place disjunctions that result threaten these marriages' ability to “make sense” to the partners of such unions. This paper examines the sense‐jeopardizing consequence of living apart and suggest that this marital form's inherent strains make it a difficult lifestyle.