A Comparative Study of the Attitudes of Single and Married Individuals about Functions of Marriage

Following the transion from a tradional society to a modern one, the change in marriage paerns and condions of building a family life brought about some changes in the objecves, funcons, and necessies of building family life. This arcle makes a comparave study of the atudes of single and married individuals about the funcons of marriage using a qualitave approach and content-based analysis. The stascal community includes all the married and single men and women in Tehran. The sample comprises 55 single men, 57 married men, 66 single women, and 60 married women who were selected by using a purposeful and available sampling method. The quesons and answers are based on sudden interviews and the interviewees had open queson: “what is the funcon of marriage?” The answers to this queson have been classified by some psychologists by making a content-based analysis. Chi-square is also used for analyzing the individuals’ atudes. The answers are divided into six categories: physical, psychological, social, economic, religious, and spiritual. Making a comparison, the arcle reveals some significant differences between married and single men and women on these issues. Considering the physiological funcons of marriage, both single and married individuals have common views. However, the atudes about psychological, social, and economic funcons are different. Single individuals pay more aenon to religious and spiritual topics. Furthermore, the research findings indicate that, despite the congruency and incongruity between the atudes of the individuals, which implies that the individuals’ atudes about the funcons of marriage have undergone some changes; they think that marriage has various funcons, which shows the high and important posion of marriage and the tendency towards marriage among them.