A Sociological Analysis of Youth's Attitudes towards Marriage through Cyberspace

With the expansion of the Internet, new forms of interaction and communication among individuals have been provided. Internet network allows the users to communicate with each other with no restrictions at different times and places and exchange information at various levels and with a wide of variety of potential people for marriage within the shortest time possible and experience multilateral social environments. The Internet led to the formation of a new kind of matchmaking, expression of love and attempt to find the right person for marriage. People establish a close relationship with others through the Internet, and sometimes may propose someone or receive such proposals. For this reason, the norms, patterns and traditional values that govern acquaintance and the attempt to find the right person to marry, have been seriously challenged. People are no longer limited by having to refer to neighbors, local people, relatives or acquaintances for marriage. The present study examined young people’s attitudes to marriage through cyberspace as well as some social factors which might have affected their attitudes in Sari City, Mazandaran, Iran. In other words, the main questions of this research are “What is the attitude of young people towards finding the right person to marry through cyberspace?” and “What social factors influence young people's attitudes?”.
This study was based on the survey method and the data was collected through questionnaires developed by the researchers. The sample of this research (400 single people including 200 males and 200 females out of a total of 49988) was drawn from young people aged 18- 29. The sampling method was based on multi-stage cluster sampling. The independent variable of the study was the youth's attitudes towards marriage through cyberspace and the depended variables included religiosity, relationships with friends and peers, dependence on family, socio-economic status, and the amount of the Internet use.
Attitude to marriage through cyberspace as the dependent variable was measured by cognitive, emotional and tendency-to-act dimensions. Other dimensions were used to measure the independent variables. Religiosity was operationalized and measured through ritual, experiential, consequential, and faith dimensions. Relationships with friends and peers was measured by 8 items such as the amount of time spent with friends, and friends’ role in decision making. Dependence on family was defined as moral commitment towards family members and included 10 items. Amount of the Internet use was measured based on the average number of hours per week spent at home, in an Internet café, work place, etc. The reliability of the different sections of the questionnaire dealing with different variables were calculated separately using Cronbach's alpha.
Discussion of Results & The findings showed that 54.5 percent of respondents had negative attitudes, 15 percent positive attitudes, and 30.5 percent neutral attitudes towards marriage through cyberspace. The independent variables of the study including religiosity, relationships with friends and peers, dependence on family, socio-economic status, and the amount of the Internet use explained 61% (adjusted R Square) of the variance of the dependent variable (young people's attitudes towards marriage through cyberspace). The unexplained residual variance was related to others factors which were not investigated in this study. The results indicated that the variable of “religiosity” was the most important predictor (β=-0/43), and “dependence on family” (β=-0/20) and “socio-economic status” (β=-0/16) were respectively less important predictors of negative attitudes towards marriage through cyberspace. However, predictors of positive attitudes included “relationship with friends and peers” (β= 0/26), “the amount of internet use” (β= 0/23), and “age” (β=0/08) respectively. According to the findings, the number of girls who had negative attitudes towards marriage through cyberspace was more than the boys and socialization did not function equally for them. Also girls’ dependence on family was more than that of the boys. As girls are considered more vulnerable than boys in the Iranian society due to such acquaintance and socialization before marriage, there is more control over the girls by the families in order to avoid the problems caused the cyberspace. The results suggested that changes in attitudes and values with respect to marriage through cyberspace is one of the indicators of extensive social changes which are taking place and being reproduced in our transient society.