Abstract
In the urban middle class, husbands are more likely than wives to initiate primary friendships for the couple at all stages of the family cycle. Couples in their forties and fifties who have been married a longer period of time have neither more nor less primary friends than recently married individuals. The modal number of local primary friendship units is two. Frequent association with relatives is not related to pattern of visiting with friends. Similarly, frequent getting together with friends does not appear to bear any relationship to how frequently couples see relatives. Approximately half of the husbands and wives claimed not to have a single primary friend independent of their spouse. Finally, children are not found to play a constraining role nor do they enhance the prospects that their parents will interact more often with primary friends.