Marital Status and Psychosocial Adjustment among Aged Women

An attempt has been made to provide an understanding of the personality profile of elderly females belonging to different marital status in relation to certain selected psychosocial correlates. Sixty aged women belonging to each group viz… married and divorcee were selected to determine their psychosocial profile. State Trait anxiety Inventory and The Relationship Profile Test were used for present study. Purposive sampling technique was applied for selection of subjects. General Health Questionnaire was also used to screen out the subject having psychopathological symptoms. The findings revealed that married women were found to be more sociable and happy in adjustment context as compared to divorcees. Less hassles and less anxiety illuminated their lives with more enjoyment and more harmonious relations. On the other hand, the life sketch of divorcees indicates that the circumstances in which their personal inadequacies are evaluated and failure is experienced put an extra threat to their self-images and as a result of poor interpersonal relationships, they become easy victims of anxiety. Basically, presence of the disturbed relational history in interpersonal and familial matrix often leads to difficult relational style in general but on the other pole, presence of emotional support cushioned the life of married women. It was also assumed that the present study would have immense value in understanding the mental profiles of the two groups and would also provide an outlet of preventive strategies in case of any psychological turmoil in their lives.