AbstractMarital satisfaction and perceptions of global marital equity were assessed in a sample of 373 Australian husbands and wives drawn from four phases of the family life cycle: preparenthood, childrearing, launching, and the empty nest. For wives only, satisfaction levels across successive phases described the U‐shaped curve predicted from previous research. Sex differences emerged in perceptions of marital equity: During childrearing and the empty nest, more wives than husbands experienced equity; and in all phases except preparenthood, inequitable marriages were more likely to produce overbenefit for husbands and underbenefit for wives. For the sample as a whole, and for the preparenthood and childrearing groups individually, marital satisfaction was predicted both by the relative level of benefit a respondent gained from marriage, and by how closely the balance of exchange in the marriage matched strict equity. During launching, however, relative benefit eclipsed strict adherence to the rule of equity as a predictor of satisfaction, whereas during the empty nest phase, strict equity eclipsed relative benefit. Possible explanations for these life‐cycle variations are discus