Journal of Psychiatry and Psychology Research (ISSN:2640-6136)
Research Article
Marital Adjustment and Modernization among Married Working Women and Homemakers
Gopika Arekkara* and Varsha Malagi
Corresponding Author: Gopika Arekkara, Department of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Psychology, Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College, Ujire, Karnataka, India.
Received: November 04, 2020; Revised: December 29, 2020; Accepted: December 27, 2020 Available Online: March 08, 2021
Citation: Arekkara G & Malagi V. (2023) Marital Adjustment and Modernization among Married Working Women and Homemakers. J Psychiatry Psychol Res, 6(3): 483-496.
Copyrights: ©2023 Arekkara G & Malagi V. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Marriage is an important part of our society and marital adjustment is an important part of a married person’s functioning. Adjustment in marriage is most desirable for everyone. Modernization can be referred to a process where both economic and cultural facets of the society modify. Modernization also includes a change in traditional beliefs about women. As the number of married women working outside the home continues to grow and there seems a decrease in married women working inside the home. The aim of the study was to measure the level of marital adjustment and modernization among married working women and homemakers. The total sample consist of 30 married working women and 30 homemakers (N=60). The data was collected by using Har Mohan Singh’s Marital Adjustment questionnaire and R.S Singh, A.N Tripathi and Ramjee Lal questionnaire of modernization. The collected data was analyzed by using independent sample t-test, and co-relation between two variables was analyzed by using Karl Pearson’s coefficient of co-relation. And thus, the findings of the study shows that there is no significant difference in marital adjustment and modernization among married working women and Homemakers and there is no co-relation between marital adjustment and modernization.
 
Keywords: Marital adjustment, Modernization, Married working women, Homemaker
INTRODUCTION

Marriage is a sacred bond between two souls and also it is not only the union of two human beings but also bonding the relationship between two families. Marriage is defined differently by different entities based on cultural, religious and personal factors. Marriage is a formal union and social and legal contract between two individuals that unites their lives legally, economically, and emotionally. The marriage agreement usually implies that the couple has legal obligations to each other until they decide to divorce. Being married also gives legitimacy to sexual relations within the marriage. Traditionally, marriage is often viewed as having a key role in the preservation of morals and civilization. We can’t just compare and say people who are currently married to people who are not married just to understand the implications of getting married. Currently married people are entirely different from other people and marriage is something where two people are connecting and making a strong bond of relationship but not necessary that all married people are building a strong and healthy relationship. There are chances of having breakdown and conflicts among the partners. Among that some are able to cop up with that also tries to patching up that relationship to a strong one was as some others fails to do that and may leads to divorce or separation. In reality marriage is a way of living the life by understanding each other and giving equal importance to their own life. It is not always full of roses but the success of married life depends upon adjustment and the level of lifestyle they are having and also some aspects of education also play an important role in leading a healthy couple relationship. With the rise in the number of dual-career families, the adjustment and marital relationship are major challenges in most of the families. Work and life are depending upon each other and dual career families are mostly seen in today’s society. Definition According to Landis, marriage as a social institution constitutes of fundamental and basic community of humanity. Marriage is a complex phenomenon in today’s society. People marry for various reason and in today’s society individuals have their own autonomy to choose their partners compared to past times. As present modernized society the changes in values and social consciousness influence the traditional understanding of marriage and family. Carl Rogers sees the present-day changes in marriage as a positive trend towards greater freedom of the spouses. Because the emotional, psychological and the physical needs of the partners are given higher priorities over mere permanence as understood by traditional marriages. Women are going to expand their lives by including a career to bring some changes and strengthen their way of living while maintaining their traditional roles. A married woman may work in an office for six to eight hours but their work does not end there. After finishing their office work, a woman comes home and takes care of her children, husband and house. Her office as well as home responsibilities make a very demanding schedule.

Working married women found themselves moving from job to job under a frequently changing cast of bosses. Reduced freedom and workload, along with the added burden of having children at home made their job’s huge claim on time and emotional tolerance. That’s why they cannot perform well at home with the increase in population throughout the world the access to basic primary needs of life has been limited and it is now the need to modern time that women too work along with men in order to run their house. Definition Marital adjustment can be defined as the mental state among couples in which there is an overall feeling of happiness and satisfaction with their marriage. And marital adjustment also calls for experiencing a satisfactory relationship between spouses characterized by mutual understanding, concern, care and acceptance. Marital adjustment has been a popular topic in studies relate to family, probably because the concept of marital adjustment is believed to be closely related to the stability of a strong and healthy family. Well-adjusted marriages are usually expected to last for a long time, whereas poorly adjusted ones end in divorce. The notion of marital adjustment is that it is difficult to conceptualize and difficult to measure through empirical research. And also, it says that after more than half a century of conceptualization and research on marital adjustment, the best aspect that can be said may be that there is disagreement and contradiction among scholars about the concept of marital adjustment, the term, and its value. In fact, several scientists have proposed abandoning information on the concept of marital adjustment and its etymological relatives [1-3].

PREDICTING MARITAL ADJUSTMENT

According to Lewis and Spanier [4] comprehensive work, there are three major factors predict marital adjustment like social and personal resources, satisfaction with lifestyle, and rewards from spousal interaction. Generally, it says that, a marriage is better adjusted if husband and wife have more social and personal resources. Which also means that Material and nonmaterial properties of the spouses enhance their marital adjustment. Examples include emotional and physical health, socioeconomic resources such as education and social class, personal resources such as interpersonal skills and positive self-concepts, and the level of knowledge they had of each other before getting married. And also, in another way It was also found that good relationships with and support from parents, friends, and significant others contribute to a well-adjusted marriage. Findings also states that spouses with similar racial, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds are better adjusted to their marriage life. The second major factor in predicting marital adjustment is satisfaction with lifestyle or the level of modernization that is happening in them. It has been found that material resources such as family income which will positively affect both spouses' marital adjustment. If it is a dual career family both the husband's and the wife’s satisfaction with their jobs enhances better-adjusted marriages. Furthermore, the husband's satisfaction with his wife’s work status also affects the level of marital adjustment among them. The wife's employment itself has been found both instrumental and detrimental to the husbands' marital satisfaction [5]. This is because the effect of the wife's employment is mediated by both spouses' attitudes toward her employment. As mentioned, the attitude of husband towards the wife’s employment is very much important. When the wife is in the labor force, and her husband supports it, marital adjustment can be enhanced. On the other hand, if the wife is unwilling to be employed, or is employed against her husband's wishes, this can negatively affect their marital adjustment and may also ends in divorce. Another major factor in predicting marital adjustment is that reward obtained from spousal interaction. On the basis of exchange theory, Lewis and Spanier [4] summarize past findings that “the greater the rewards from spousal interaction, the greater the marital quality” [4]. Rewards from spousal interaction include value consensus; a positive evaluation of oneself by the spouse; and one's positive regard for things such as the physical, mental, and sexual attractiveness of the spouse. Other rewards from spousal interaction include such aspects of emotional gratification as the expression of affection; respect and encouragement between the spouses; love and sexual gratification; and egalitarian relationships all these forms of rewards from spousal interactions plays an important role in keeping a strong and healthy marital relationship. Married couples with effective communication, expressed in self-disclosure, frequent successful communication, and understanding and empathy, are better adjusted to their marriages [6]. Complementarity in the spouses’ roles and needs, similarity in personality traits, and sexual compatibility all enhance marital adjustment. Another aspect is that frequent interaction or the proper communication between the spouses leads to a well-adjusted marriage, in a dual career family were both husband and wife are employed and they merely talk each other in their busy schedules. So lack of communication between spouses will largely affect in their marital adjustment. As mentioned, dual career marriage is a part of modernized society where both husband and wife are working for their family. The term dual-career marriage was first coined in the late 1960s and mid-1970s by Rapoport and Rapoport [7], who are regarded as the pioneers and founders of dual-career family research. They described in their study about dual-career marriage as a family structure in which both husband and wife pursue careers while simultaneously maintaining family life. These authors found that partners in dual- career marriages tend to emphasize occupation as the primary source of personal fulfilment. Dual- career marriages differ from dual-earner marriages in that in dual-career marriages both spouses are pursuing a career. Stoltz-Loike [8] found that in dual-career marriages both spouses are highly committed to their careers and view work as essential to their psychological sense of self and as integral to their personal identities and both husband and wife will be having a mutual understanding among themselves. Having a dual career family setup will largely help the family to meet up their family life mutually and can make a better way of living. Modernization is defined as the process of starting to choose and using the most recent ideas, methods, equipment, etc. so as to see something more modern and newer. As modernization is simply defined as adapting something new to the modern needs as a process of modernizing. According to Landis, marriage as a social institution constitutes the fundamental and basic community of humanity Modernization refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a form of traditional concepts to a form of modern society. The effusion of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories. Where it might be possible for some society to make the transition in a unique different way. In Historians part they have linked modernization to the processes of urbanization and industrialization, and also to the spread of education. As Kendall points that, "Urbanization accompanied modernization and the rapid process of industrialization." Sociological critical theory states that, modernization is linked to an overarching process of rationalization. When modernization is increasing within a society, the individual becomes more important and eventually replacing the family or community as the fundamental unit of society. Theory and history of Modernization have been explicitly used as a guide for countries to develop rapidly.

HISTORICAL ASPECT OF MODERNIZATION AMONG WOMEN

One of the main impact modernizations has bought is the importance of education. Where in olden times it was a misconception that only men are supposed to have education and they are the only one who is supposed to earn for the family, were as women in the family are only supposed to do all household work and taking care of the family. But modernization has brought an overall change for that kind of misconceptions. And modernization helped us see and dream for better living, better house, better life style and it directly directed towards education. Better and higher education is normally considered to be the base to fulfil the dreams through a better job and hence better earning. Modernization has made the society to think about the educational aspects among women. And this education has bought numerous changes among women and also there was a tremendous transformation found from the side of society towards women getting educated and earning for their family. Where slowly there found an increase in dual career families where both husband and wife are working to run out the family. Where women have given a space for decision making as well as to earn for her family.

Goode and Bernard evidently associated the spread of female wage labor with a change to the modern married family and female economic independence from traditional family structures. In contrary to that the position of women in preindustrial or traditional societies is depicted as servile, dependent, and very much inferior to that of men. Hence, modern changes that bring societies closer to the Western pattern and a standardized way of life as advantageous to women. Raphael Patai, editor of Women in the Modern World [9] states in his article that, throughout the world women have moved toward greater freedom and have achieved greater equality with men both within and outside the family, in the legal, sexual, social, occupational, economic, political and cultural aspects. In classical times, which confined women to the home as servants, and helpers to their menfolk, has been, or is in the process of being, replaced by a new one in which women increasingly undertake to fill many roles within the home, as wives, mothers, and homemakers, and outside it as partners and coworkers of men in all types of enterprises (1967: l).

Studies show that although there are some significant benefits to dual-career marriages, such as increased family income and a sense of fulfilment states by [10], dual-career couples also tend to experience sociological pressures and complications [10,11]. One such complication is that in some marriage’s wives earn more than their husbands and this can cause strain due to men’s traditional role as bread-winners which are some factors towards marital adjustment. Larkin and Ragan [11], Betchen [12], Greef and Malherbe [13] also state that despite the increasing norm for women's employment and the expectation that women should contribute to the family's financial situation, the traditional social assumptions about gender roles continue to enshroud much of South African society's attitudes. It is argued that non-traditional family members experience several dilemmas and challenges as they go about their daily lives [10, 11, 14].

Arthur and Parker [11] state that in dual career marriages the couple deals with challenges relating to family structures and the loss of community and traditional values. Rapoport and Rapoport [14] found that dual-career marriages face five major dilemmas: role overload, role cycling, social network dilemmas, identity dilemmas and normative dilemmas. These dilemmas are briefly described below with the addition of more recent sources that concur with Rapoport and Rapoport [14] original findings.

According to Ozzie and Harriet [15] men and women are autonomous individuals with wants, hopes, desires, expectations and free will. In order for marriage to succeed there should be respect for the autonomy of each individual. And during the classy times wives have to wait for their husbands to meet their needs. So, husbands will start dominating them and will show superior kind of attitude towards their life where wives will have to suppress all these to lead a better life if not it will end up in divorce. Most of the time women are suppressed and living a life according to the wish of their spouse. Where women are not valued in any aspects of their life. There comes the importance and usage of dual career aspect as both husband and wife is working together to run their family and also at this time wife’s will also get valued in decision making as well as in all other point of their life.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This section intends to outline the existing literature on married working women, homemakers, marital adjustment and modernization.

Studies related to married working women

Ahmad and Khan [16] conducted a study on the Quality of Life among Married Working Women and Housewives. The sample of the study was 80 married women participant’s age ranging from 25-40 years, in that 40 were Married working women and 40 housewives, the study was done in Bijnor. The study results in statistical analysis showed that there was no difference between married working women and housewives on physical health, whereas both the group differs in psychological married working women are generally more educated and exposed to professional interpersonal relationship.

Sumathi and Muralidaran [17] conducted a study on married working women. The purpose was to study the problems of married working women, inside the home and at workplace. The researcher aims to understand their self-adjustment, family adjustment, adjustment with children, adjustment with husband and adjustment with elders and relations. The samples selected for the study was 125 married working women which are both professional and nonprofessionals and also from rural and urban areas of Coimbatore. The study results showed that the adjustment problems of married working women are more at their home than at their work place.

Sundaresan [18] a study was conducted on the factors affecting work life balance among working women and the consequences of poor-work life balance. Data were obtained through a structured questionnaire administered to 125 randomly selected working women across organizations/institutions in Bangalore City. Results shows that a significant proportion of working women are experiencing difficulty in balancing work and family due to excessive work pressure, too little time for themselves and the need to fulfill others' expectations of them. Majority of the working women experience job spill over into the home as they have to put in longer hours.

Rani [19] conducted a study on non-working married women. The study aimed at finding out marital adjustment problems faced by Non-working women and working women teachers. The study was done in Bahadurgarh city. A sample of 80 women (40 non-working women and their spouses and 40 working women teachers and their spouses) is selected randomly. For this study Marital Adjustment Inventory was used for data collection. The result revealed that nonworking wives face more marital adjustment problems in comparison to their partners. Secondly working women teachers faces marital adjustment problems in a greater degree to that of nonworking women.

Delina and Raya [20] conducted a study on Work-Life Balance in Working Women. And the study shows that weekly hours of work and the stress associated with work were very important determinants of employees‟ work-life balance, alongside their occupations, age and caring responsibilities. Problems with balancing in work-life balance of working women affects their health who report stress, muscle tension, weight gain and depression than their male counterparts.

Studies Related to Homemakers

Maqsood [21] conducted a study on The Effect of Depression among working and Non-working married women. The aim of the study was to explore the determinants of depression among working and non-working married women. Result of the study concluded that working women have more depression as compare to nonworking women. The study also shows that the non-working married women can perform better married life and they are free from depression as compared to working married women.

Chaudhary and Ahmad [22] conducted a study on psychological wellbeing among housewives and working women of Mithila region, north Bihar, India. The purpose of the study is to check the levels of psychological well-being among the housewives and working women of Mithila region, North Bihar. The total sample consisted of 120 women comprising housewives and working women from different organization. Data gathered through questionnaires using Psychological Well-being scale. The study results indicated that elderly housewives have low level of psychological well-being in comparison to elderly working women but it is interesting to be cited that both the elderly group of women needs to have social and emotional support from their respective social and family institutions as reported by them.

Rao [23] conducted a study on Daily Stressors and Coping Strategies of Homemakers and Employed Women. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of employed and homemaker status of women on their daily experience of stress and wellbeing. The samples of the study are working women and homemakers drawn from Delhi. Data was collected by using daily stress inventory and a scale of PGI general wellbeing. The result of the study indicates significant difference between employed and homemaker women on different dimensions.

Studies Related to Marital Adjustment

Basharpoor and Sheykholeslami [24] conducted a study on the relation of marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships between marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women. It is correlational study. A sample of 730 women were selected randomly among all women living in the province of Western Azerbaijan (Iran) and participated in this study. Dyadic Adjustment scale and Quality of Life questionnaire are the two scales used for this study. The results showed that all dimensions of family functions and dyadic adjustment were positively correlated with quality of life in women. Results of multiple regression also revealed that 33 percent of total quality of life can be explained by family functions and 24 percent of this variable can be explained by dyadic adjustment. Study concluded that women’s quality of life was affected by family functions and marital adjustment in family.

Dave [25] conducted a study on marital adjustment among working and non-working women. And the study was found that there is significant difference in marital adjustment among working and non-working women. Jamabo and Ordu [26] show that both working and non-working-class women exhibit no clear difference in their marital adjustment. The educational attainment of women does not affect their marital adjustment. Women who are low of low-income status exhibit the same degree of marital adjustment as those of higher economic status.

Srivastava [27] conducted a study on Marital Adjustment among Patients with Depression. Beck Depression Inventory-II and marital adjustment inventory were used for the study. A sample of 60 depressive patients (30 male and 30 female) with diagnosis of ICD10 were purposively selected for the study. Findings revealed that there are significant marital problems among depressive patients with males reporting comparatively more marital problems.

Arshad [28] conducted a study on Marital Adjustment and Life Satisfaction among Early and Late Marriages. The purpose study was to find out the effect of age on marital adjustment and life satisfaction among early and late marriages. The scales used for the study are Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Urdu [29] and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) [30]. The sample was comprised of (N=160) early and late married, men and women. Early married (n=80) and late married (n=80) selected from different cities of Punjab, Pakistan. Results indicate a significant positive correlation (r=0.33, significant at p 0.01) in marital adjustment and life satisfaction. On the other hand, there is a significant difference (significant at p 0.001) between late marriages and early marriages on marital adjustment. The results also indicate that there is a significant difference (significant at p 0.001) between late marriages and early marriages on life satisfaction.

Badgujar [31] conducted a comparative study of love, trust and marital adjustment among love marriages and arranged marriages. The aim of the research was to study supremacy of love marriages & arranged marriages on love, trust and marital adjustment. Were administered to 153 couples (100 arranged marriage couples & 53 love marriage couples). The findings show that love marriage and arranged marriage couples are differing on marital adjustment. Love marriage couples having better marital adjustment than arranged marriages couples. No gender differences are observed on marital adjustment. Type of marriage x gender, jointly does not showing any impact on marital adjustment. Passionate love (PLS) and marital love (MLS), trust and marital adjustment (DAS) are positively associated with each other. Husbands and their wives are interdependent with respect to passionate love, marital love, trust and marital adjustment (DAS).

Dandona [32] conducted a study on marital adjustment and depression of working and non-working married women. The main purpose of the research was to find out the difference in marital adjustment and depression of working and non-working married women. The total sample consisted of 200 working and non-working married women. The marital adjustment questionnaire and mental depression scale were used for collection of data. Results indicated that employment status affect significantly on depression of married women. And also, there was negative correlation found between marital adjustment and depression of working and nonworking married women.

Studies Related to Modernization

Hameed [33] was conducted a study on Impact of Modernization on Gender Roles - A Study of Advocates in Muzaffar Garh. The aim of the study was to view the impact of modernization on gender roles. The researcher has studied the socialization, decision-making, choice of marriage and household duties. Gender roles have been changed at a great extent due to modernization. Education played an important role for the progress and change in gender roles. Now females have equal right in decision making. Females have choice to marriage and equal opportunity in education, and have easily access to university. Socialization of children and liberty are influenced due to modernization. The study has concluded that male and female both are doing work out of home and in the home, due to which there have been created a gap and socialization of children is influenced.

Anindita and Vijaya Lakshmi conducted a study on working and non-working women on modernization and stress. A total sample of 200 women were selected for the study in which 100 working and 100 non-working with an age range of 30-50 years were chosen from Patna. Comprehensive Modernization Inventory by Ahluwalia and Kalia [34] was used for measuring modernization along with stress scale developed by Singh. Chi-square and t-test were used for statistical analysis. The result of the study revealed that working and non-working women differed significantly in respect of modernization and working women scored higher on stress scale in comparison to their counterparts.

Desetty and Agarwal [35] conducted a study on the “Association between modernization of the college girls and their family background variables”. The aim of the study was to find out the association between assessed modernization levels of college girls and selected family background variables. All the college going girls had positive attitude towards over all modernization and their levels were rated to be very good and good. Chi- square value revealed high significant association between the assessed over all modernization of the college going girls 93 and their mother’s employment status and area of living, Non-significant results were found between college going girls' modern opinion in the area like socio-religion, marriage, position of women and education and their selected family background variables like type of family, size of family, in others employment status and area of living.

Chahal [36] conducted a study on Psychosocial Impact on attitude towards modernization. The aim of the study was to find out the psycho-social impact on the attitude towards modernization of college going students. It was found that, Male and female college students do not differ significantly in their attitude towards modernization and there was no significant impact of intelligence of college students of their attitude towards modernization. The achievement motivation of male students had no significant impact on their attitude towards modernization. Attitude of male students towards modernization varies with varying levels of socio-economic status. Intelligence, achievement motivation and socio-economic status have no joint effect on attitude towards modernization.
Inglehart and Baker [37] conducted a study on Modernization, cultural change and the persistence of traditional values". The study found that economic development is linked with systematic changes in basic values and found the evidence of both massive cultural change and the persistence of distinctive cultural traditions. Economic development is associated with shifts away from absolute norms and values towards values that are increasingly rational, tolerant, trusting and participatory.

SUMMARY OF REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Review of literature suggest that there are number of studies done on marital adjustment among married working women and homemakers. The researchers states that there is significant difference in marital adjustment among married working women and homemakers. And some researchers states that both married working women and homemakers exhibit no clear difference in their marital adjustment. The educational attainment of women does not affect their marital adjustment. Women who are of low-income status exhibit the same degree of marital adjustment as those of higher economic status. And this review of literature also suggests that there are number of studies done on modernization but there are very smaller number of studies done on how modernization effect the marital adjustment of married working women and homemakers, among these studies it showed working and non-working women differed significantly in respect of modernization. Also, some studies shows that homemakers can perform better married life and they are free from depression as compared to working married women.

RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Marriage is a divine institution that exist since evolution of man. Earlier education was just learning of life skills, later on man has discovered the secret behind his evolution. Now a day’s education is considered as a primary and most important concern to mankind. Women, an inevitable part of society is also privileged to get higher education then earlier time. They are also recognized as the bread winner of the family. Ancient time’s males worked hard outside to earn the economic resource and women took their role within the family. Dual career family is the trend of modernized era where both husband and wife are working for their livelihood. As time passed by women are getting more independent and they do not truly relay on the partner for their needs. This change occurred due to modernization and the development in the society. That provide them several them several option. Due to this reason researcher is interested to know about modernization and marital adjustment of educated married working women and homemakers.

METHODOLOGY

Methodology consists of research questions, aim, objectives, research design, participants, sampling and sample selection criteria, procedure, tools and nature of the tools and the statistical analysis used in the study.

Research Questions
  • Is there any difference in the level of marital adjustment among the married employed women and homemakers?
 
  • Is there any difference in the level of Modernization among married employed women and homemakers?
  • Is there any significant relationship between marital adjustment, and modernization?
Aim

To study the level of marital adjustment and modernization among married employed women and homemakers.

Objectives
  • To find out the level of marital adjustment among married employed women and homemakers.
  • To find out the level of modernization among married employed women and homemakers.
  • To study the relationship between marital adjustment and modernization.
Hypothesis
  • H01: There is no significant difference in the level of marital adjustment among the married employed women and homemakers.
  • H02: There is no significant difference in the level of modernization among married employed women and homemakers.
  • H03: There is no significant relationship between marital adjustment and modernization.
Variables
  • Independent variables
  • Married employed women and homemakers
  • Dependent variables
  • Marital adjustment and modernization
  • Sample
  • Purposive sampling method is used for the study. The sample was selected from Kasaragod district of Kerala state (Table 1).
Inclusion Criteria
  • Graduated women are included
  • Participants are in the Age range of 25-35 are included
  • Women who are employed for at least 3years
  • Women who are married of minimum 2 years
Exclusion Criteria
  • Divorces are excluded
  • Widows are excluded
  • Mentally ill women are excluded
Research Design

Research is exploratory in nature and sample survey research design is adopted.

Assessment Tools

Personal Data Sheet

The personal datasheet was prepared by the researcher. The data sheet contains socio demographic details like name, age, educational qualification, occupation, married since etc.
  1. Marital Adjustment Inventory
Marital Adjustment Inventory (MAI) [28]: Marital adjustment inventory assesses the level of adjustment of the subjects. The inventory consists of two forms, form A for husbands and form B for wives. Each form consists of 10 questions.

Scoring

To obtain the score of general marital adjustment, use the scoring key and sum up the scores for each question. Each question may have maximum 10 scores and minimum 1 score and zero score when the reply is other than expected according to the scoring key (Table 2).



Reliability
The coefficient of reliability for each of the six professions of the inventory and for general population are reported. These were determined for correcting the odd even terms and applying the spearman- brown prophecy formula.

Validity

The inventory has been validated in the following ways: the items in the inventory selected in terms of the degree to which they differentiate between the upper and lower 15% of persons in a distribution of scores. Only those items which clearly differentiated between these extreme groups are included in the present form of inventory.
  1. Modernization Scale
Modernization scale was developed by Raghavendra S. Singh, A.P.S University, Rewa, AmarNath Tripathi & Ramjee Lal from Buddha postgraduate college Kushinagar.

Scoring Key

For the purpose of scoring the scale, a score key has been prepared which gives an indication about the score for the answer given by the tests on the six points of the scale. It also indicates about the area of modernization as A, B, C, D.
A: Socio-religious
B: Marriage
C: Position of women
D: Education
The score would range between minimum 32 to minimum 192. The score on 32 items shall be the raw score for the scale.
Since the test measures attitudes of modernity in four sub areas, two types of score can be obtained: a) area wise modernization score and b) total score indicating overall modernization. Each sub-area contains both type of items- positive and negative.
Item number 14, 16, 19 as positive and item number 10, 17, 27, 30, 31 as negative comes under socio religious area and under the area of marriage positive items of 5, 21, 29 and negative items of 4, 22, 25, 28, 32. Area called Position of women with positive items 6, 12, 15, 24 and negative items 1, 11, 18, 23 and under area of education items of 13 and 26 are positive and 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 20 are of negative category. Each area consists of 8 items with a total of 32 items in the scale.

The score to be awarded for different response categories according to the type of statements 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for positive items and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 for negative items.

Reliability

The split half reliability (odd even method) was calculated and after spearman- brown’s correction was found to be r= 0.78 for the total scale, which is significant at 0.01 level of significance.

Validity

Face on content validity: This type of validity was demonstrated by 100% agreement among the five judges regarding the relevance of the items content to the attitudes being measured by the scales.

Concurrent validity: In order to ascertain concurrent validity, the scores from each subscale were correlated with the score on the total scale. The correlation ranged from 0.61 to 0.97. These higher correlations demonstrate that sub scale have high validity.

Procedure

The assessments have been done individually. Purpose of the study was to explain to the participants and their willingness to participate in the study will be ascertained after the establishment of rapport. The socio-demographic details were collected. Then the marital adjustment inventory and modernization questionnaire has been given to the sample with the proper instructions one after the other. Answered questionnaires has been collected from the participants and was checked for any kind of omissions. Then the scoring was done for the responses obtained and interpreted according to the manual.

Ethical Issues
  • The research has been approved by the department review committee.
  • Written consent was obtained from the participants of the research.
  • The participants were assured about the confidentiality of the information provided by them.
  • The obtained data has been used only for the purpose of the research.
Statistical Analysis

Independent Samples t- test: Pearson’s product moment Correlation is used to find out the relationship between marital adjustment and modernization.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results obtained were analyzed by using independent samples t-test and Karl Pearson’s coefficient of correlation. The independent samples t-test was used to understand the significant difference in the level of marital adjustment and modernization among marred working women and homemakers. The coefficient of correlation between marital adjustment and modernization was obtained through Karl Pearson’s co-efficient of correlation.

Part one analysis Socio demographic details of the participants: The age of married working women indicates that 40% of participants falls under the age range of 25-30 and 60% of participants falls under the age range of 30-35 (Figure 1).

Age of homemakers indicates that 43% of participants falls under the age range of 25-30 and 57% of participants falls under age range of 30-35 (Figure 2).

The education qualification of married working women indicates that 54% of participants have completed B.Ed. course and 13% of participants are graduated and about 33% of participants have done Post graduation in different subjects (Figure 3).


The education qualification of homemakers is indicated that 17% of the participants has completed B.Ed. and about 50% of participants had completed graduation and also 33% of participants had completed masters in different subjects (Figure 4).

Occupation of married working women indicates that 33% of participants falls under the occupation of teachers and 40% of participants work as office administrators and about 27% of participants work under other areas of occupation (Figure 5).

Part two analysis

Independent Samples t-test: The hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference in the level of marital adjustment among married working women and homemakers was tested using independent samples t- test. The obtained t value is .428 which is not significant at 0.05. Thus, the obtained result indicates that there is no significant difference in the level of Marital Adjustment among married working women and Homemakers.

Hence, the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference in the level of marital adjustment among married working women and homemakers is accepted (Table 3, Figure 6).

The hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference in the level of Modernization among married working women and homemakers was tested using independent sample t- test. The obtained t value is 0.966 which is not significant at 0.05. Thus, the obtained result indicates that there is no significant difference in the level of modernization among married working women and Homemakers. Hence, the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference in the level of modernization among married working women and homemakers is accepted (Table 4, Figure 7).

Karl Pearson’s Co-efficient of Correlation

The hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between marital adjustment and modernization was tested using Karl Pearson’s Co-efficient of Correlation (Table 5). The findings of the analysis indicates that there is no relationship between Marital adjustment and modernization (r = 0.170) which is not significant. Thus, the result indicates that with the increase in the level of modernization, does not have any significant effect on marital adjustment and also with the increase in the level of marital adjustment does not have any significant effect on modernization. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between marital adjustment and modernization is accepted. The alternate hypothesis is rejected which states that there is a significant relationship between marital adjustment and modernization. The research findings are contradictory to what Soni [39] wrote in their study that domestic violence is a major factor for decreased marital adjustment. It implies that if couples are well adjusted with each other, the chances of domestic violence, marital conflicts were low.  Modernization is considered to play major role in deciding if a husband will use the means of violence to gain control over his wife.



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Summary and conclusion contain brief summary of the present research work, major findings, conclusions, implication, limitations, and scope for further research.
 
SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH

The present study was undertaken to study the level of marital adjustment and modernization among married working women and Homemakers. Married working women and Homemakers are the independent variables; marital adjustment and Modernization are the dependent





variable. The sample included 60 participants, comprising of 30 Married working women and Homemakers. The purposive sampling Technique was used to collect the data. The sample survey Research Design adopted in the study. The participants who are in the age range of 25-35 were included and the women who is married since two years were taken for the study.

The Marital adjustment scale developed by Singh [38] was used to assess the level of marital adjustment and Modernization scale developed by Raghavendra S. Singh was used to assess the level of Modernization among the participants of the study. The obtained results were analyzed using Independent Samples t-test and Karl Pearson’s Co-efficient of Correlation.

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

Independent Samples t-test

The Independent Sample t-test was undertaken to know the difference in the level of marital adjustment and modernization among married working women and homemakers.
  • The obtained result indicates that there is no significant difference in the level of marital adjustment among married working women and homemakers.
  • There is no significant difference in the level of modernization among married working women and homemakers
Karl Pearson’s Co-efficient of Correlation
The relationship between marital adjustment and
modernization was found out by using Karl Pearson’s Co-efficient of Correlation.
  • The result indicates that with the increase in the level of marital adjustment does not have an effect on level of modernization.
CONCLUSION

The study reveals that the occupational status of married working women does not affect the marital adjustment. It also indicates that with the increase in the level of modernization does have an effect on level of marital adjustment but the effect is not significant.
As time pass by society face dramatic changes, but the worthiness given to the institution of marriage still remain and the concept of marital adjustment is still valued.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
  • The data of the study was collected mainly from the state of Kerala; hence caution has to be exercised while generalizing the findings.
  • Small sample size
  • Study would have been done among couples, which might have contributed more to the study.
  • Study would have been improved more if occupation of married working women was considered.
  • Only questionnaire method was used.
  • The data was obtained using only self-report inventories.
IMPLICATIONS

The findings of this research indicate the importance of improving the level of marital adjustment among married women. Married women should be given an awareness about taking together family life as well as the changes happening in the society, and also giving a divinity to the institution called marriage.

SCOPE FOR FURTHER STUDY
  • Qualitative research methods can be done for improving the quality of the paper
  • The study can be extended using Longitudinal Research
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  • Table 1
  • Table 2
  • Table 3
  • Table 4
  • Table 5
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