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Couple

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy

  • 118 Accesses

Name of Family Form

Couples

Synonyms

Marriage; Partnered; Romantic relationship

Introduction

Couples are defined as two or more individuals engaged in a romantic and/or sexual relationship. Couples may live together, live apart, marry, divorce, and raise children together. Generally, couples share life’s many transitions and developmental stages together. Some couples stay together for many years and others stay together for only a brief period of their lives. Couple relationships shift with cultural norms as the acceptance of divorce, gay and lesbian adoption of children, premarital cohabitation and sexual relations, nonmarital childbearing, and same-sex sexual relationships increases over the past 15 years (Daugherty and Copen 2016). The following description and related research will detail coupling and couple relationship as seen in the USA including US-born and immigrant couples, interracial couples, same-sex couples, and significant issues facing couples.

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Coupling in...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO, USA

    Katie M. Heiden-Rootes, Dixie Meyer, Kristin McDaniel & Lauren Wilson

Authors
  1. Katie M. Heiden-Rootes
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  2. Dixie Meyer
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  3. Kristin McDaniel
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  4. Lauren Wilson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katie M. Heiden-Rootes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    Jay Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    Anthony Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. University of Saint Joseph, 1678 Asylum Ave., West Hartford, CT, USA

    Rachel M. Diamond Ph.D.

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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Heiden-Rootes, K.M., Meyer, D., McDaniel, K., Wilson, L. (2017). Couple. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_583-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_583-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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