Marital Adjustment and Anxiety Among Working and Non-Working Married Women in Bangalore

Abstract

Coleman and Miller (1975) reiterate that a good marriage makes a person feel adequate, desired, approved and complete to a degree which is not possible in any other form of human relationship. Marital adjustment as ‘the state in which there is an overall feeling in husband and wife of happiness and satisfaction with their marriage and with each other. All the marriages are aimed at happiness in one or another way. Anxiety may be defined as an emotional state in which physiological and psychological indications like rapid tremor in the limbs, sweating of hands, flushing of the face and neck, heart palpitations, blood pressure, inability to sit still, pacing the room, chain smoking, tenseness, restlessness etc. are clearly visible. This study was conducted to assess the relationship between marital adjustment and anxiety level among working and non-working women. Sample consists of 150 working married women and 150 non-working married women were randomly selected from the area of Bangalore city with age range from 25 to 35 years and graduate qualification. The tool used for the study was Marital Adjustment Questionnaire by Dr. Pramod Kumar and Dr. (Km) Kanchan Rohatgi (1982). The present questionnaire has 25 items. There are two categories of responses ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for each item. The major findings of the study included There is highly significant correlation between the two measures. The table suggests the correlation of Marital Adjustment and anxiety is r=-.50, (**p<0.01). It indicates that if anxiety is high in married women, then their married life will be suffered and vice-versa. There is non-significant difference between working and non-working married women and their marital adjustment (t=1.168, df=298, p=NS). This finding do not support our hypotheses that working married women and non-working married women differ from each other on marital adjustment. There is significant difference between working and non-working married women (t=2.15, df=298, p<0.05). The results indicate that non-working married women feel more anxiety in their married life as compared to working married women.