A study of marital adjustment of couples in relation to status of girl child

In India, there are two very celebrated occasions in the family: 1) marriage of the son and 2) the birth of a son. The two are closely interrelated, with the presence of a female being very crucial for their completion yet the same crucial element always going unrecognized. Marriages are believed to be made in heaven and therefore every female weaves a differently coloured picture of it, as beautiful as she can. What she doesn't realize is that being born into the Indian society her value rests on being able to produce a male heir to the family. Unable to do so she has to go through neglect, abuse, violence etc at the hands of her husband, with whom she had once seen the most beautiful dreams of her life.

The current study attempts at studying the same through combined scores of couples obtained on the marital adjustment scale. The study aimed at analyzing the impact of presence (birth) of a girl child on the marital adjustment of the couple and the issues related to it. Amidst all these expectations of bearing a son and trying to save her marriage the women finds her ‘self’ being lost.

In words of Kiran Bedi, “In India a women is still not an individual by herself. She is a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter-in-laws, or a mother-in-law first. The point is that while a woman is all above ‘she can be she too’, as an independent status! and not many are there yet.”