The concept of family life cycle has become increasingly prominent in the study of family development--the formation, maintenance, change, and dissolution of marriage and family relations. An evaluation of this concept is accomplished by examining the relationships between three possible stratification schemes: stage of the family life cycle, marriage cohort, and birth cohort. Cross-classification analysis, analysis of variance, and log-linear analysis for multidimensional contingency tables provide a traingulation of approaches to the question of whether one stratification scheme is superior to another. No method emerged as superior for either prediction or analytical utility. It is concluded that family life cycle as a stratification scheme for studying family development has no more demonstrated value than marriage cohort or age cohort. The article's primary contribution is methodological. The findings suggest that data sets heretofore untapped for family analysis including age or duration of marriage, but not stage of the family life cycle, may now be appropriate for examination of developmental questions by marriage and family researchers. (Author/MFD)