The relationship between the degree of marital adjustment and the emotional adjustment of the children within the family is widely accepted as is the corollary belief that the marital relationship determines the child's adjustment. A sample of 69 married couples with children was used to examine the interrelationships among several measures of family adjustment and to explore the role of the social desirability response set on the self-report of marital and child adjustment. Subjects completed the Spouse Observation Checklist, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the Louisville Behavior Checklist, the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, the Parental Attitude Research Instrument, and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale. Results closely replicated previous findings, suggesting that couples with well-adjusted marriages were unlikely to have children who evidenced behavior problems. When social desirability was controlled, the relationship between marital and child adjustment was not significant. The results suggest that previously reported correlations between marital and child adjustment may have been inflated by a social desirability response set. The social desirability response set appears to play an important role in the relationship between marital and child adjustment among normal families. (Author/NRB)