Dissemination and evaluation of marriage education in the Army

The effectiveness of marriage education was evaluated in two separate samples of primarily married couples in which at least one member of the couple was on active duty in the U.S. Army. The intervention was delivered by Army chaplains. Effects replicated well in the two samples, and demonstrated that marriage education was well received by this population and resulted in improvements in relationship functioning. Changes in relationship quality were examined separately for males and females, and also for couples in which both members of the couple were Caucasian as compared with all other couples. There were no significant differences in changes over time (i.e., from pre- to postmarriage education) among males and females or among couples with different ethnic makeup. These results have important implications for the generalizability of marriage education to diverse samples in nontraditional contexts.