Marital Satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates

Marital satisfaction is a culturally bound construct influenced by many traditional family values and processes. Research on marital satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates is very limited perhaps due to unavailability of a culturally relevant scale. In this study, the Emirati Marital Satisfaction Scale (EMSS) was constructed and validated based on a community sample of 407 Emirati married men and women. The 30-item unidimensional EMSS was found to have high construct validity and internal consistency reliability estimates. The validity of the EMSS was supported by the positive correlations between marital satisfaction and life satisfaction and self-esteem. Men reported higher level of marital satisfaction than women. Demographic variables such as religious commitment and living location affect marital satisfaction in the Emirates. Implications for research and practice were provided.