Grounded in the socio-cultural context of Chinese society, this study investigates commitment, fidelity, and intimacy as three fundamental elements in sustaining marriage, and explores their associations with marital quality from a dyadic perspective. Data were drawn from 402 married couples in the Greater Taipei area. Measures included marital commitment (22 items), fidelity beliefs (5 items), intimacy (20 items), marital quality (14 items), and demographic controls. Analytical strategies comprised factor analysis, latent profile analysis, and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM).
The findings are as follows. First, marital commitment was decomposed into five factors: commitment to spouse, commitment to marriage, marital constraint, child-related ties, and transcendent reverence. Second, based on these factors, couples' commitment profiles were categorized into four types: indifferent-neglectful (12.5%), transcendent-constraint (26.9%), spouse-focused (30.0%), and reverent-commitment (30.6%). Third, husbands reported significantly higher levels of commitment across the five factors, greater intimacy, and better marital quality than wives, while fidelity beliefs showed no gender differences. Fourth, results from hierarchical linear models indicated that, compared with reverent-commitment couples, indifferent-neglectful couples reported significantly lower fulfillment, whereas spouse-focused couples reported significantly lower regret. Moreover, stronger fidelity beliefs and greater intimacy were both positively associated with higher marital quality. The link between commitment type and fulfillment was moderated by fidelity beliefs, with indifferent-neglectful couples low in fidelity beliefs reporting the lowest fulfillment. Likewise, the association between commitment type and regret was moderated by intimacy, such that spouse-focused couples with high intimacy reported the lowest regret.
These findings underscore the distinctive significance and functions of commitment, fidelity, and intimacy in shaping marital quality among couples.