The Problem of Satisfaction with Marital Relations in a Young Family

The relevance of the study of the problem of marital satisfaction in a young family is beyond doubt, since a prosperous family allows each of its members to realize their urgent needs for security, emotional support, self-realization and is an indispensable condition for social development and well-being. In addition, today the institu-tion of the family is experiencing serious difficulties that do not allow it to fully perform the above-mentioned functions: the number of single-parent families has increased, the number of childless spouses has increased, the birth rate is falling, the physical and mental health of children and parents is deteriorating. The aim of the work is to analyze the degree of development of the problem in modern domestic and foreign psychology and to formulate a theoretical and methodological position as a basis for further empirical research. For this purpose, the article reveals theoretical ap-proaches to the concept, structure, classification of levels of satisfaction with marital relations, diagnostic methods and psychological factors of satisfaction with marriage of young spouses. The article identifies and presents three main approaches to the content of the concept of “satisfaction with marital relations” and, accordingly, three approaches to diagnosing the level of satisfaction with marriage. The authors adhere to the position that satisfaction with marital relations is a complex mental formation, manifested in the unity (or contradiction) of emotional and intellectual assess-ments of the experience of partnerships and family relations in general. In this regard, to identify the degree of satis-faction with marriage in a young family, the authors propose using methods, each of which assesses the degree of expression of its structural components (emotional and cognitive). The final assessment of the degree of satisfaction with marriage is derived on the basis of the consistency of the results obtained using each method separately. The prospect of further research consists in solving the question of how the type of value-semantic self-determination of partners (spiritual-moral or egoistic-prestigious) is connected with their satisfaction with marital relations in a young family, which has not previously served as the subject of special analysis.