Satisfaction and stability in a marriage: does it matter if you have met online or offline?

The master thesis looks at marital satisfaction and stability in Czech marriages between 2005 and 2015. The aim of the thesis was to find out whether meeting your spouse online or offline affects marital satisfaction and break-up rate (separation and divorce). The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on attractiveness, the characteristics of a good relationship, the development of marital satisfaction and existing research on online dating. A nationally representative sample of 316 respondents provided answers in an online questionnaire. The results indicate that one in three Czech marriages now begin online. Half of the online group met on an online dating site and 17 % on a social media site. When compared to those that began offline, "online marriages" were slightly less likely to end up in a marital break-up (31 % offline, 26,5 % online) and reported slightly higher marital satisfaction. However, none of these differences were statistically significant. The differences were higher when the online group was narrowed down to the ones who met on an online dating site and on a social media site but remained statistically insignificant. This group also retrospectively reported better fulfilment of their criteria for their life companion at the beginning of a relationship (p=0,041). In general, men..