The Relationship between Early Marital Relationships and the Influence of Family Relationships among Young Filipino Women

Abstract

Marriage serves as the legitimizing context for sex, childbearing and co-residence with a sexual partner, and is expected to last until death. However, it is slowly being deinstitutionalized. Early marriage appears to be less of a social institution and it is becoming more as just a source of intimacy for the individuals involved. The aims of this research are: (1) to determine the relationship between the quality of a young Filipino woman’s marital relationship and the quality of her family relationship; (2) to determine the relat ionship between marrying early and the discipline style of their parents; and (3), to assess the current situation of young women engaged in early marital relationships. Subjects involved in this study are 147 early married young women aged 16-22 years old, residing in Barangay Pansol, Quezon City. One hundred thirty one (131) of them answered the survey questionnaire while sixteen (16) early married young women were interviewed. Instrumentation included a researcher-made and validated survey questionnaire. Part 1 of the instrument is for the respondent’s personal data. Part II consists of the intimate relationship scale, a 21-item questionnaire that was used to measure the quality of an individual’s intimate relationship with his/her partner. Part 111 consists of the family relationship scale, an 18-item questionnaire that was used to measure the quality of an individual’s parent-child relationship and his/her own relationship with his mother and father. Part IV consists of an open-ended question on the discipline style of their parents. The statistical treatments are the Pearson product correlation and chi-square test of independence. The results show that there is a significant relationship between the quality of young women’s marital relationship and their family relationships. Computed Pearson r correlation ratio (a = at .05) yielded a coefficient of 0.78 indicating that there is high positive correlation between the quality of a young woman’s marital relationship and her family relationships. The results of the Chi-square Test of independence show, that the young women’s early marital relationships are highly dependent on their relationship with their father, their mother and their home emotional tone. The chi-square results show that the domains of the intimate relationships of the early married young women has significant association with the domains of their family relationship. However, the chi-square result in the test for implementing independence between Respect domain visa- vis Relationship with Father is 1.462 with p value of 0.482. P value is greater than critical value of 0.262, so the null hypothesis is rejected at 0.05 level of significance. This means that the Respect domain of the women’s marital relationship has no significant association with their relationship with their father. Based on the results of the interviews on the Influence of Parent’s Discipline Style on Early Marital Relationships, majority (64%) said their parents never resorted to corporal punishment. However, there seems to be no apparent significant association between the discipline style of their parents and their early marital relationship. Whether they are physically abused or they were just talked to, they still blame their parents for their current marital state. The results also show that youthful marriages are often caused by pregnancy. Also, the findings show that poor educational background is strongly associated with early marriages. In assuming a marital role, they perceive themselves as “taga-silbi” which means it is their obligation to cater to the needs of their husbands and children.