Matrimonial Research Articles

Promising images of love: a qualitative-ethnographic study about the mediatised memories of weddings

Background Digital and electronic media play a central role in weddings, capturing everything from the preparation to the ceremony itself and beyond. These media make specific moments of the wedding day memorable. But how do couples manage their wedding photos and videos, and what role do these media play in evoking memories of the event's religious and secular dimensions? These questions are explored within the theoretical framework of mediatisation and memory processes. This paper argues that the mediatization of weddings evokes emotions that strengthen the impact of these memories. Media shape how these events are recalled, leading to a partial homogenization of memories, where cultural and religious differences, as well as sexual orientation, become less prominent. Methods This interdisciplinary qualitative-ethnographic research is based on twenty-seven semi-structured video recorded interviews conducted in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland with homo- and heterosexual married couples from different cultural-religious backgrounds. The couples shared their wedding album or video and developed their wedding narrative by looking at the photographs and videos. Results Taking photos during the wedding becomes an important part of the ritual, independent of any cultural or religious background, gender and sexual orientation. The ceremony itself is emphasized in the photos and the videos. This homogenisation of the rite of passage equally occurs in the photographic representations of weddings and in turn influences how the wedding is remembered. The findings further confirm that heterosexual marriage representations reinforce gender stereotypes. The brides/wives of heterosexual couples are significantly more invested in the production and reception of wedding media, whereas homosexual couples participated in the conversation rather equally. Conclusions The homogenization of representation and memory becomes part of the rite of passage’s cultural-collective memory that connects the individual couples. The mediatisation of weddings strengthens the feeling of belonging to a community that transcends cultural-religious identities.

The Degree of Marital Compatibility and Family Stability during the Corona Pandemic according to a Number of Variables among a Sample of Married Couples in Irbid Governorate

The study aimed to identify the nature of differences in the degree of marital compatibility and family stability among a sample of married couples in Irbid Governorate according to demographic and personal variables (gender, age, duration of marriage, educational level). The descriptive approach was used for the study, the study sample consisted of (400) husbands and wives from all residents of Irbid Governorate who were drawn randomly. The results of the study showed statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in the field of companionship according to the gender variable, as the value of (F) reached (3.864) with a statistical significance of (0.050) and in favor of males , There are statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in the field of role participation between spouses according to the gender variable, as the value of (F) reached (89.216) with a statistical significance (0.000), in favor of females, there are no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in the fields (the presence of disorders and the desire for separation and divorce, there are statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in family stability according to the variables (gender - age - duration of marriage - educational level).

Whether and What to Tell: A Qualitative Study of HIV Disclosure Among Heterosexually Married Men Who Have Sex with Men in China

In China, HIV transmission increasingly affected men who have sex with men (MSM) and those in heterosexual marriages. This study addressed a critical gap in understanding HIV and sexual orientation disclosure within conventional heterosexual marriages, framed within a family-oriented cultural context. Heterosexually married MSM living with HIV (HIV+ MMSM) faced complex identity dynamics and interactions between “gay circles” and marital life. Such disclosure was fraught with potential repercussions, including accusations of “marriage fraud”, HIV-related stigma, and divorce. This descriptive qualitative study, conducted in 2022, aimed to explore the common factors influencing HIV status disclosure to wives among Chinese HIV+ MMSM. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted to analyze the factors related to the disclosure process model. Four key themes emerged: (a) concern for wives’ well-being, (b) perceived marriage strength, (c) the degree of social support they had, and (d) a desire to maintain their status in a heterosexual society. The decision to (non)disclose was shaped by both approach-focused and avoidant-focused goals related to these four themes. The findings underscored the need for culturally sensitive strategies that balance family dynamics, stigma reduction, and HIV care management, emphasizing tailored approaches to effectively support this population.

Legalization of LGBT Marriage: Case Study from Vietnam

LGBT marriage is a legal union between two individuals of the same sex, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. This type of marriage recognizes the equal rights of all people to marry regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In Vietnam, the legal status of LGBT marriage has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate. Although the country has made significant strides in improving the rights of LGBT people, there is still a lack of official legal recognition for same-sex marriage. To date, same-sex marriage has not been explicitly legalized nor fully protected under Vietnamese law. This means that although same-sex marriages are not criminalized, and people have their free will to live together and hold ceremonies, yet these marriages do not hold the same legal status and rights as compared to heterosexual marriages. Vietnam has a strong cultural background and conservative beliefs; these play a crucial role in society in respect to the views within it when it comes to LGBT individuals. Society is becoming more tolerant; however, the LGBT community members are still judged with a high rate of discrimination. Although acceptance still significantly varies between regions and different age groups, public opinion is indeed softening, especially among the young. Due to the legal recognition, LGBT marriages provided them with equal legal rights and responsibilities concerning property, inheritance, adoption, and healthcare, just like heterosexual couples. On the other hand, this also can be regarded as another critical step to social inclusion and the fight against discrimination. This research will discuss the current situation of same-sex marriage in contemporary Vietnam with the aim of completing the picture of the LGBT community. The research study will also interview 22 LGBT individuals and a survey of close to 200 participants.

Marital adjustment and marital self-efficacy levels of married individuals based on former university accommodation

The aim of this study to examine the differentiation status of university graduate married individuals in marital adjustment and marital self-efficacy levels in the context of their experiences of living with or apart from the family during their university years. Quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were used to investigate, and the research was designed in a sequential explanatory design. According to this, quantitative data were collected using data collection tools and subsequently qualitative data were obtained through interviews. The findings of the quantitative data obtained from 324 participants (185 females, 140 males) did not indicate a statistically significant difference in terms of marital compatibility and marital self-efficacy based on their housing situations during their university years. In the findings obtained from the qualitative data, gathered from 20 (10 female and 10 male) participants, was determined that the participant's experiences and several factors that make differences in marital adjustment and self-efficacy levels. It appears that the discrepancy in parallelism between the quantitative and qualitative data outcomes may be due to the fact that these results were presented by separate working groups. Application and study suggestions were presented to researchers and field experts in line with the information obtained from the research findings.

Good deeds or exploitation?: Queer parents working for private assisted reproductive technologies companies in urban China

This article examines the interplay of queer reproduction and private assisted reproductive technologies (ART) companies in urban China. While same-sex marriage has not gained legal recognition in mainland China and childbirth outside heterosexual marriage has been restricted, queer parents who have children through ART have gradually become visible. ART has emerged as an ideal way for Chinese queer citizens to have children, though they are not legally permitted to use ART services in domestic hospitals. Consequently, an increasing number of queer intended parents turned to underground ART businesses, with some of them becoming salespeople or business owners themselves. My ethnographic analysis comes from fieldworks conducted in Guangdong province, China, from 2018 to 2021. This paper shows that the legal and moral debates brought by queer people’s use of ART are perceived differently among diverse gender and sexual groups in Chinese society. It founds that queer parents’ participation in the ART industry has demonstrated the potential for queer forms of parenthood and family, while reinforcing stratified reproduction and gender inequalities. The tendency to reduce IVF/surrogacy to “womb-for-rent” business among Chinese ART businesses continues to impact queer people’s reproductive and parenting rights. This paper hopes to offer insights into queer reproductive justice and reproductive technologies across the globe.

“Is the Child Really the Missing Piece?” Making Meaning of Family in Turkish Childfree Couples Through Relational Dialectics Theory

ABSTRACT In Turkey, married couples are traditionally not considered families until they include children. Moreover, voluntarily childfree married couples in this culture are marginalized and struggle to legitimate their choices. Using relational dialectics theory, we sought to better understand these couples’ experiences by identifying the discourses they use in their meaning-making around family. Husbands and wives from eight childfree couples in heterosexual marriages participated in in-depth interviews. Contrapuntal analysis identified two primary discourses: the discourse of families include children (DFIC) and the discourse of couples are families (DCAF). The DCAF challenged the DFIC, which frames having children as achieving an accepted family, creating meaningful life and marriage, and as an inevitable result for married couples. The DCAF recognizes that families do not need children, create their own happiness, and can (re)make their choices about adding children. Findings have implications for professionals supporting couples about deciding to be childfree in this culture.

Psychological Stress and Its Relationship to Marital Compatibility Among Women Working in Jordanian Universities Considering the Corona Pandemic

Psychological Stress and Its Relationship to Marital Compatibility Among Women Working in Jordanian Universities Considering the Corona Pandemic

Marital compatibility and its role in family stability

Successful marital compatibility is achieved by resolving understanding, aligning interests, exchanging respect, and maintaining equality in the assessment of family issues. It is also associated with stability in personal characteristics such as the willingness to give up a challenging stance in discussions, patience in seeking advice, the ability to avoid subjugating and humiliating others, as well as love, agreement and good relations between spouses and other family members. The psychological and social security felt by the wife plays an important role in ensuring happiness and marital compatibility. It ensures family stability, which is the focus of this article by highlighting the role of marital compatibility in family stability and supporting it with a field study on couples' attitudes towards contraceptive use.

Mona Maclean, Adaptably Amorous

This article investigates how Margaret Georgina Todd’s Mona Maclean, Medical Student [1892], is largely unapologetic in its presentation of queer female characters. In a quasi-autobiographical product of a Sapphic woman, Todd’s eponymous heroine functions as a fictionalised version of Todd herself. Mona Maclean’s remarkable queerness reveals itself when we subject the text and the relationships therein to what Sharon Marcus refers to as ‘just reading’ in her monograph Between Women. Female amity in Todd’s novel exists within a broad spectrum of desire, from friendly flirtation to what I term ‘New Coupledom’, a queer, coupled complement to New Womanhood for women who use heterosexual marriages to facilitate their same-sex partnerships. This article aims to make the logical next step from examining the force of the New Woman novel to the purchase of a principally queer New Woman novel in the late nineteenth century.

Heteronormative geographies and other sexual practices in rural Haryana, India

Kinship patterns and caste structures have a significant effect on Indian people’s lives. Rural Haryana has a strong caste-based kinship system organised around a heteronormative narrative that shapes associated societal and cultural values. This narrative centres on heterosexual marriage, which is arranged within the rules of kinship patterns. Such marital arrangements are viewed as the only space in which people can realise their sexual desires. This article aims to understand the diverse practices of people in rural Haryana that subvert this narrative to realise their sexual desires. The study adopted an ethnographic approach, using casual conversations as a data source to understand how sexuality is practised in rural areas under a strong kinship structure. In the paper, we argue that while the practices documented may seem subversive and countervailing, they contribute to concretising and maintaining the dominant social structure.

E.M. Forster's Female Musicality: Inconclusive Counter-romance in A Room with a View

Abstract: E.M. Forster's A Room with a View (1908) musically animates a "self-reflexive gender consciousness" to expose the limits of romantic female life. Employing music to confront the logics of the heterosexual marriage plot, the novel embodies a counter-romantic subtext about the desire for female independence. As such, Forster's music moves attention away from marriage and toward female hesitation about domestic identities in early twentieth-century society. Forster's own late-in-life considerations of A Room also signal that post-war disruptions provide backgazing clues to the novel's inconclusiveness over nuptial anxieties, further highlighting how ideals of heterosexual love and social inheritance obscure the aims of unrealized female selfhood.

Book Review: Sex and the Married Girl: Heterosexual Marriage and the Body in Postwar Canada by Stanley, Heather

Book Review: <i>Sex and the Married Girl: Heterosexual Marriage and the Body in Postwar Canada</i> by Stanley, Heather

Sex and the Married Girl: Heterosexual Marriage and the Body in Postwar Canada by Heather Stanley (review)

Sex and the Married Girl: Heterosexual Marriage and the Body in Postwar Canada by Heather Stanley (review)

Beyond Words

Beyond Words

Investigating the effectiveness of emotion-based couple therapy on marital adjustment

Background and purpose: Marital compatibility is a state of compatibility in the relationship between spouses, during which couples respond constructively to the requirements of the relationship. The success of a couple's life depends on their success in marital compatibility, and incompatibility leads to tension; Therefore, this research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of emotion-based couple therapy on marital adjustment. Research method: The research design was semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test. For this purpose, 30 couples (60 people) from Mashhad City were selected by purpose-based sampling and randomly placed in two experimental and control groups. First, the couples answered the marital adjustment questionnaire, and then the people in the experimental group were trained in EFT emotion-based couple therapy for 10 sessions. SPPS-24 software and covariance analysis were used for data analysis. Findings: The results of the pre-test and post-test comparison of the two groups showed that emotion-based couple therapy training has a significant effect on increasing marital adjustment. Conclusion: As a result, emotion-based couple therapy has affected increasing marital compatibility, and the results of this research can be used to reduce marital problems.

The Gendered Division of Housework in China: Parenthood Effects and Heterogeneity Across Parenthood Stages

Research documents that the gender gap in housework is substantially larger among parents compared to couples without children. Because most evidence is from developed countries, it is unclear if a similar pattern exists in China, where couples have fewer children and the gendered division of household labor is more pronounced. Based on longitudinal survey data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (1997–2015) and two-way person-based fixed effects models, the present study examined the effects of parenthood on spouses’ housework time and share, as well as the heterogeneity across different parenthood stages within heterosexual marriages. The findings suggest that the birth of a child widens the gendered division of housework for Chinese families by substantially increasing housework time for mothers and reducing it for fathers. This gendered division of housework is most pronounced when the youngest child is a preschooler and remains unequal in subsequent parenthood stages. Overall, the study is among the first to demonstrate that parenthood is a highly gendered process in China that widens the gender divide of housework for married couples.

Why now? Late-life divorce timing process: Dyadic and individual perspectives

Late-life divorce is increasing in the Western world, including among family-oriented societies like Israel in which the most common family status for older adults (age 60 years and older) is being in a heterosexual long-term marriage with adult children. Within a life-course framework, we use both dyadic and individual interview analysis to explore the process that led to the timing of late-life divorce. Understanding this process from dyadic and individual perspectives could strengthen knowledge regarding this expanding phenomenon in family-oriented societies and could contribute to developing targeted interventions and policies for such couples. Semi-structured interviews were conducted separately with 44 heterosexual ex-spouses comprised of 10 dyads ( n = 20) and 24 individuals ( n = 13 women; n = 11 men). The divorces were mostly after age 60 and followed a long-term marriage with children. Two themes emerged from the analysis: the long-term phase of divorce delay despite longstanding motivations, and the moment of final decision with its various background accelerators. The discussion addresses intersections between personal time, family time, and social/cultural time related to divorce, and between intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects. Implications for family gerontology are presented.

What Is A Family? A Constitutive-Affirmative Account.

Bio-heteronormative conceptions of the family have long reinforced a nuclear ideal of the family as a heterosexual marriage, with children who are the genetic progeny of that union. This ideal, however, has also long been resisted in light of recent social developments, exhibited through the increased incidence and acceptance of step-families, donor-conceived families, and so forth. Although to this end some might claim that the bio-heteronormative ideal is not necessary for a social unitto count asa family, a more systematic conceptualization of the family-the kind of family that matters morally-is relatively underexplored in the philosophical literature. This paper makes a start at developing and defending an account of the family that is normatively attractiveand in line with the growing prevalence of non-conventional families and methods of family-formation. Our account, which we call a constitutive-affirmative model of the family, takes thefamily to be constituted by an ongoing process of relevant affective and affirmative relations between the putativefamily members.

Coming out as Transgender: The Cisgender Heterosexual Spouse’s Perspective

When a partner comes out as transgender within the context of an established heterosexual marriage, the impact to the cisgender-heterosexual spouse is often overlooked. The researchers utilized a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) approach to explore the experiences of cisgender-heterosexual spouses who have had a partner disclose a transgender identity, and what played a role in maintaining their marriage. We interviewed twelve participants whose partners came out as transgender after marriage. Data analysis revealed nine domains: marriage; learning about my partner and transition; learning about myself; family; reactions; mental health; support; social influence; and cultural influence. Findings indicate that participants underwent a vast array of both positive and negative experiences and shared a variety of factors that contributed to their decisions to remain married or not. We discuss implications for clinical practice, limitations, and directions for future research.