Assessing Couple and Marital Relationships: Beyond Form and Toward a Deeper Knowledge of Function

Both the public and private sectors are increasingly interested in helping more couples enter into and maintain strong marriages (Horn, 2003; Ooms, 1998). Although there has been a growing marriage movement in the United States since the early 1990s, public-sector interest in marriage burgeoned with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). Although little known and less emphasized, the act included the goal of increasing the number of children living in stable, two-parent families.