Mate Choosing Among Young Females: a Conflict Between Individuality and Traditional Values

The change in cultural and social ideals in combination with the evolution of women’s social roles definitions have brought an emergent or even a complex situation in the process of marriage for young women. To understand this complexity as the main goal of this research, the deep qualitative approach was used. Therefore, deep semistructured interviews were held with 15 young women in Mashhad city. The interview scripts were analyzed using grounded theory method. Findings showed that despite the powerful presence of traditional values and beliefs, there was an increase in women’s agency. This fact was formulated as a central phenomenon in terms of a category named:“a conflict between individuality and traditional values in the process of choosing mate”. Moreover, regarding to causal factors such as “economic and cultural independency”, contextual factors such as “intergenerational transmission” and “the revolution in communication patterns”, and mediating factors like “education experience of women and their families”, young women adopted different mate selecting strategies including the traditional, friendship based or mixed ones which have four different groups of consequences. These consequences have been discussed extensively in this article.