Iranian Parents’ Standards for Desirable Child-in-law

Cognitive structures form one’s appraisals of their relationships. Spouse's family play an important role in the quality of marital relationships in Iran. The present study examines some of these cognitions, namely the standards from the perspective of Iranian parents about the desired in-law, with the approach of interpretive phenomenology. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 parents with at least one in-law. The mean ages of mothers and fathers were 57/5 and 58/5 years, respectively. Data were analyzed by Klaizi method. four themes were, Desirable characteristics of the couple and relationship with the spouse and communication with the spouse's family, desirable family characteristics and desirable individual capabilities. Reasons for standards include facilitating a good relationship between the spouse and the child, facilitating a good relationship between the family and the spouse, and between the grandchild and the spouse. The way parents' standards refer to themes are dual strategies of fulfilling standards before marriage and dual strategies of responding to non-fulfillment of standards after marriage. The essence of standards is maintaining family Period