The proposed research would analyze seven waves of prospective panel data from the National youth Survey (N=1,719; age 11-28) to determine the effects of marriage, cohabitation, and procreation on the frequency and seriousness of violent offending. Special attention shall be paid to the strength and quality of relational bonds, and to the impact of partner deviance. Since the relationship between familial association and violent behavior may be reciprocal, structural equation models will be used to determine the strength and directionality of significant effects. The implications of partnering for displacement of violence from "stranger" to "intimate" victims will be considered, as will the influence of prior criminal justice sanctions on the likelihood of partnering and procreation. The inclusion of female subjects (N=860) will allow for an unprecedented assessment of the effects of familial associations on patterns of female, as well as male violence. Attention to long term stability and change, to the significance of order and timing, and to the interaction of micro-macro influences will place all within a life course Framework (Elder and Caspi, 1990). Evidence of a reformative effect of marriage, cohabitation, and/or procreation would not only provide testimony as to which particular social factors facilitate reform, but also that expedited reform is indeed possible. Such results would imply that age-crime patterns are less than "invariant," that adult life events do matter, and that we are not, in fact, helpless prisoners of the persistent effects of inadequate childhood socialization.