Marital relations in incest offenders.

Abstract The study compared 92 incest perpetrators to 40 (noncriminal) married males on two marital inventories, the Clarke Marital Relations Questionnaire (CMRQ), and the Sexual Behavior and Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire (SBMSQ). Results showed that marital disharmony, in the form of mistrustfullness, lack of mutual friends and time together, emotional instability (in both partners), but not sexual relations, were predominant factors in incest perpetrators' profiles. A discriminant function analysis correctly classified 91.37c of incest offenders, but only 30.0% of controls, into their a priori group. Incest perpetrators reported less mutual give-and-take in disagreements with their spouses, a trend to confide less in their wives, arid being more lonely in their marriage. Incest offenders reported they knew their spouses less well prior to marriage, despite the lack of any between-group differences in length of marriage or number of prior marriages. No differences emerged with respect to the range o...