Marriage And Family Life Satisfaction: Comprehensive Analysis In Sri Lankan Context

Marriage brings life-patterns together and helps them to develop intense love and affection towards each other. It deepens the emotions and strengthens the companionships, between the two. It also helps them to develop intellectual cooperation between them. Marriage and family are interdependent social institutions since marriage ensures a biological satisfaction (that of sex) and psychological satisfaction (that of having children) on the individual plane, and on the wider collective plane, it ensures a tow fold survival, that of the group and its culture. Family system refers generally to the customary normative manner in which family processes unfold, namely, the usual pattern of family practices and household dynamics, including the main elements of marriage form and preferences, succession, property inheritance, residential arrangements, and power structure as a function of gender and age within the family. The family is nucleus of all other social organizations. The whole social structure is built of the family units. It influences the whole life of society.This study attempted to examine, marriage patterns and their affect on family life satisfaction in Sri Lankan society. Consequently, the study considered five major patterns of marriages on partner choice procedure and residence patterns after marriage i.e. Love marriage, Proposal (Arranged) Marriage, Uxorilocal residence marriage, Virilocal residence marriage, Neolocal residence marriage. In addition, the study examined influences of respondents’demographic variables on family life satisfaction. Accordingly, married individuals’Age at Marriage, Education Level, Income, Marriage Time Period and Dowry Acceptances were considered as demographic variables.The whole methodology of the study is based on the survey and quantitative method. Under the survey method, data for the study were collected through the administration of a formal questionnaire and depth discussions were held with households in Sri Lankan context. The questionnaire was developed into three parts. Part one addressed the demographic variables of the respondents. Part two attempted to identify marriage and family background variables of the households. Family life satisfaction was measured in the part three of the questionnaire. The part three of the questionnaire was developed with 17 attributes measures of attitudes of respondents’ family life with five point Semantic Differential scale. The study attempts to draw forth the situation of family life satisfaction of the respondent deeply. Therefore, for collecting the data of part three of the questionnaire, depth discussions have been done with the respondents.The total sample of the study consists of 896 married individuals living in 14 districts of seven provinces in Sri Lanka. Convenience sampling procedure was considered, based on the convenience to reach them. Kruskal Wallis one-way ANOVA and Mann Whitney tests were conducted to test the set of hypotheses of the study. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to ensure the reliability of the study constructs i.e. Marriage patterns and how they affect on family life satisfaction. In addition, the study was employed Pearson Correlation statistics to explore the relationship between the family life satisfaction attributes measures.The study derived more comprehensive and valid approach from dealing with respondents’attitudes of their family life which provide insights on measuring family life satisfaction evaluation. Subsequently, the study demonstrated that, under marriage patterns, families are formed by Love marriages and Neo-local residence marriages have higher level family life satisfaction. Subsequently, under marriage background variables, the study reveals that, respondents are belong to the Adult age category, Tertiary education category, High income level category, Middle marriage time period category and category of not accepted dowry, have a higher level influences on family life satisfaction. Considering these findings, the study determines that marriage is one major cause of the success of a family life..Implications of the study were discussed in terms of policy implication and theoretical implications. Accordingly, the study approached on examining possible family life satisfaction scale variables. The reliability of the scale was ensured with Cronbach’s Alpha and proposed to future use of the variables in family life satisfaction studies. This study also helps to clarify what are, the major socio cultural factors are related to marriage influencing on family life satisfaction. Thus, the study provides proper direction to make social development policy and implementation for the social development. As such, the policy decision makers are facilitated with the findings of the present study:Policy decisions can be made, based on the findings given by the study. The limitations of the present study have pointed out with providing future research directions at the end.