Quality: The Effect of Gender IdeologyThis study assesses the relations between division of household labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality by comparing three ethnic-religious groups in Israel that reflect traditional, transitional, and egalitarian ideologies. The findings, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology, show that sense of fairness mediates the relation between division of labor and marital quality and gender ideology moderates these relations for women but not for men. Perceived fairness is related to the division of labor for women in egalitarian and transitional families but not in traditional ones. For egalitarian women, a more segregated division of labor is linked directly with lower marital quality whereas for women in transitional families it is mediated by sense of fairness. The findings are discussed on two overlapping levels-conceptual-theoretical and sociocultural-with implications for understanding families in cultural transition.In the past decade, there has been growing interest in the causes and consequences of the way in which household tasks are allocated. A large vol-

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This study examines the hypothesis that the effect children have on their parents' marriages is due to stress in the parental role. A multivariate model was specified to assess the relationship between fathers' and mothers' parenting stress and their psychological well-being and perception of marital quality. In addition, the effects of 6 other variables were assessed: 2 competing roles (mother's employment and household division of labor), 2 children-related variables (number and age composition), marital duration, and economic distress. Data were collected from both the husband and the wife in 287 intact couples who had children living at home. Using structural equation modeling, data from both parents were analyzed jointly to assess the mutual effect of the spouses on one another. The findings indicated that, for both fathers and mothers, parenting stress was affected by the number of children and economic distress, but not by other roles (wife's employment and household division of labor). For both spouses, psychological well-being and perceived marital quality were affected negatively by parenting stress. Significant association was found between husbands' and wives' parenting stress, as well as a mutual effect of their perceived marital quality on each other. Some theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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This study assessed the association between pain perception and psychological variables in women with vulvar vestibulitis syndrome (VVS) by comparing 28 VVS women with 50 healthy women. We assessed non genital systemic pain perception with quantitative sensory testing by administering experimental pain stimuli to the forearm. The VVS women demonstrated a lower pain threshold and a higher magnitude estimation of pain, combined with a higher trait anxiety, increased somatization, and a lower body image. Among the VVS women, nonvaginal pain catastrophizing was significantly related to reported pain during coitus. A cluster analysis revealed four subtypes of VVS women, as characterized by levels of pain and personality variables. I suggest implications for the assessment and treatment of women suffering from painful coitus.