Prior to the late 20th-century trend of secularization and the formation of nuclear families that lived apart from an extended familial network, marital problems were fielded to religious leaders and family elders. However, following those demographic shifts and the increase of divorce since the 1960s, with statistics indicating that 50% of all marriages end in divorce, relationship counsel has become a profession and a field of research.

Psychologists Eli J. Finkel, Jeffry A. Simpson, and Paul W. Eastwick perceive that while relationships have been a preoccupation for poets, philosophers, and religious leaders throughout human history, “the coalescence of an integrated science devoted to understanding human relationships dates back only to the 1980s” (Finkel, Eli J., et al. “The Psychology of Close Relationships: Fourteen Core Principles.” Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 68, Jan. 2017, pp. 383-411). Relationship science has since become “an interdisciplinary field that employs diverse empirical methods to understand the initiation, development, maintenance, and dissolution of interpersonal relationships” (Finkel). The field examines “the structure and trajectory of relationships” in studying how the dynamics and outcomes of a relationship are influenced by both personal and contextual factors, stemming from society at large (Finkel). Thus, rather than dealing with relationships on a case-by-case basis and administering advice based on an individual’s personal or religious reviews, as occurred with the earlier, casual formats of marital advice, contemporary relationship science uses the empirical tools of observation, quantification, and comparison to draw its conclusions.