Abstract
Background & Objectives: Marital conflicts manifest in Iran by a significant increase in the number of registered divorces. There are several findings on the causes of marital disputes. Most marital conflicts of a couple are caused by the inequality of involvement and participation of men in family affairs, compared to women, which is based on gender stereotypes. These stereotypes usually mean unequal share in the married life of a man and a woman. So, gender roles and equity are two critical factors that cause conflicts. In today's world, gender patterns are changing because traditional gender patterns can be restrictive and discriminatory for men and women. Therefore, it seems that research is needed to examine the current characteristics of femininity and masculinity and perceived fairness in the marital conflicts of Iranian women. So, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between gender roles and perceived equity in marital conflicts in married women.
Methods: This is a descriptive correlational study. A total of 404 married women aged 25 to 40 years, living in Tehran City, Iran, with at least one child, were chosen by available sampling. The inclusion criteria were their length of marriage of at least 1 year and at most 21 years, between 25 and 40 years old, having at least one child, and living in Tehran. The exclusion criteria were incomplete completion of the questionnaires and declaration of addiction or unemployment of the spouse. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, the samples virtually completed the Sex Role Questionnaire–Short Form (Bem, 1981), Revised Marital Conflict Questionnaire (Sanai et al., 2008), and Perceived Equity Measurement (Perry, 2004). Data analysis was performed using the Pearson correlation, eta–squared correlation, 1–way ANOVA, and multiple regression in SPSS26 software at the significance level of α=0.05.
Results: Most respondents (304 women) had one child. Their average length of marriage was 8.68 years. In gender role classification, the highest frequency was in women in the androgynous category, and the lowest was in the undifferentiated category. The results of the Pearson correlation showed a significant negative relationship between masculinity and marital conflicts of married women (r=–0.50, p<0.01). Also, there was a significant negative relationship between perceived equity and marital conflicts of married women (r=–0.54, p<0.01). We found a relationship between gender roles and marital conflicts (F=21.40, p<0.001). In addition, there was also a relationship between perceived equity and gender role (F=8.73, p<0.001). The results of 1–way ANOVA showed a significant difference between the means of marital conflicts in married women due to their gender roles and also a significant difference between the mean value of perceived equity in married women due to their gender roles. The mean value of marital conflicts of women with a feminine gender role was significantly higher than the marital conflicts of women with masculine and androgynous gender roles (p<0.001). The mean value of perceived equity of married women with masculine and androgynous gender roles was significantly higher than the perceived equity of married women with feminine gender role (p<0.001). The results of multiple regression showed that masculinity and perceived equity explained 42% of the variance of marital conflicts.
Conclusion: Gender role is a determining factor in predicting women's marital conflicts. Breaking gender stereotypes along with equity and understanding equal human rights will be a big step in reducing relationship conflicts.