Chinese adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with adult children’s marriage, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction

Abstract

Based on three annual waves of data obtained from 265 Chinese couples during the early years of marriage and using an actor–partner interdependence mediation model with latent difference scores, this study examined the associations among adult children’s perceived parents’ satisfaction with their (i.e., adult children’s) marriage, in-law relationship quality, and adult children’s marital satisfaction. Results indicated that husbands’ and wives’ perceived parental satisfaction with their (i.e., adult children’s) marriage was indirectly associated with the changes in their (i.e., adult children’s) marital satisfaction via their (i.e., adult children’s) perceived relationship quality with either fathers-in-law (FILs) or mothers-in-law (MILs); however, when husbands’ and wives’ perceived relationship quality with FILs and MILs was considered simultaneously in a single model, only two indirect pathways were still retained: Husbands’ and wives’ perceived parents’ satisfaction (HPS and WPS) with adult children’s marriage was associated with the changes in wives’ marital satisfaction exclusively via wives’ perceived relationship quality with their MILs. Such findings suggest the particularly salient roles of the relationship between daughters-in-law and MILs in shaping Chinese adult children’s marital well-being and also highlight the importance of conceptualizing families as configurations of interdependent relationships across multiple households and examining marital well-being from ecological and social network perspectives.