This article reports the findings of a study of the marital relationship in the parents of children and adolescents from different child and adolescent psychiatric diagnostic groups. Data on the parental relationship were obtained using the Maudsley Marital Questionnaire. This questionnaire provides information not only on emotional factors in a marriage but also on sexual factors; the latter having received little attention in research to date. Extensive demographic data on family and child _ such as family composition _ were used in the analyses. Emotional and sexual aspects of the marital relationship appeared nearly exclusively to be related to the age of and the age interval between the children, and with the level of psychic functioning of the father. Some relations were found between the nature of the psychiatric problems of the child and the marital relationship. Both parents of boys (not girls) with an oppositional disorder reported a relatively large number of marital conflicts. Other correlations with the marital relationship were only found in anxious and depressive boys. These findings probably reflect the involvement of a third common variable. It is important that future research in this field takes demographic data into consideration. It is also recommended that data concerning different dyads in a family be investigated independently.