ABSTRACT
Family is the domain of life that gives most pleasure to people throughout adulthood. In this chapter, reasons for it can be found in one's relationships with the partner and children, and in intergenerational relationships. The chapter analyzes associations of present relationships and parenting with socioemotional development, personality characteristics, and psychological functioning. The aim is to find the emotional wholeness of intimate relationships. Identification information enquired in studies often includes a person's marital status and the number of children. The quality of partnership may also vary in intact marriages. It was studied by defining marital quality on the basis of the participant's satisfaction with the relationship and the amount of hostility in the relationship. Attachment theories were developed to describe a child-parent relationship, but they have been extended to also describe an adult-adult relationship. An adult's characteristic adaptation to life appears, among others, in his or her relations to various life domains.
