Communication in the Shifting Context of Intimacy: Marriage, Meaning, and Modernity

This essay relates communication and the social construction of reality in marriage to historical changes in American culture. It argues that two evolving characteristics of American culture ‐ degree of plurality and sex‐role asymmetries (differentiated life worlds versus undifferentiated life worlds and equality versus paternalism) ‐ created distinct eras in American society in which communication in marriage had different unintended consequences. It argues that this theory of the interplay between culture, history, and interpersonal communication provides a basis for the exploration of present‐day intercultural differences in interpersonal communication and suggests a need to historically situate research in interpersonal communication.