This study examines the relationship between marital quality and global well-being among husbands and wives in enduring marriages in Israel. Fifty-one couples married for at least 40 years answered both itemized questions about the components of their marriage and global questions about their marital satisfaction. The findings indicate that, while the husbands' marital satisfaction was dependant largely on the content of the marital relationship and not related to their general well-being, the wives' marital satisfaction was affected by both the content of their marriage and their global well-being and, moreover, contributed to their well-being. These findings are consistent with Bernard's (1972) contention that marital quality is more important to wives' mental health than to husbands'. Like other findings on the relationship between marital quality and global well-being, however, these findings are cohortspecific, since the relationship depends on the context in which the marriage takes place.

This article presents a typology of enduring marriages of Israeli couples married for at least 40 years. Based on the view that marital quality is a multidimensional phenomenon, the typology is derived from a cluster analysis of responses of husbands and wives in 51 couples to the ENRICH scale items. Three types of enduring marriages were found: vitalized, satisfactory, and conflictual. Vitalized marriages were characterized by high scores on both the intrinsic (e.g., mutual acceptance, communication, conflict resolution) and extrinsic (e.g., financial management, relations with relatives and friends) aspects of marriage. Satisfactory marriages were characterized by lower scores on the intrinsic aspects but relatively high scores on the extrinsic ones. Conflictual marriages were characterized by difficulties in both aspects. Some clinical implications are suggested and further quantitative studies of enduring marriages are urged.