Explaining the Gender Differences in Iranian Marital Paradigms

Given that cultural perceptions regarding marriage are shifting and the pathways to marriage are more complex, scholars interested in marital rela tionships have recently focused their attention on understanding the individual’s attitudes, values, and beliefs regarding marital transitions and relationships, and how those beliefs may alter individual and relational behaviors. In this article we have tried to rely on various theoretical approaches to explain marital meaning - particularly the theory of symbolic interactionism and concept of "Marital Paradigm" as the central concept of the study - to create an appropriate model that provides a different explanation for differences in individual’s marital paradigms. The model explains the marital paradigm using four groups of factors. Our basic idea was marital paradigm which was a production of encountering four groups of factors including personal, structural, cultural and commutative factors. The model was tested by a secondary analysis - based on dataset from a survey conducted in 2016 in Tehran - and has been confirmed by results of this study. The results showed that variables such as religiosity, age, income, marriage duration and gender directly affect the marital paradigms of Iranian people.  Given that paradigm differences may be the root of many marital problems, the present study introduces a new form of homogamy called "paradigmatic homogamy” as a solution. This concept considers the paradigmatic coordination of couples as an important factor in marital strength, and suggests that individuals learn about the partner's paradigmatic characteristics before entering into marriage. These characteristics can be traced to the six dimensions of the marital paradigm that we discussed in this study.