Women’s Role in Family Happiness: A Qualitative Study in Yazd

Introduction:

Happiness and vitality have been the raw materials of change, evolution, and social life for human begins. They have been among the indicators of development in societies. In terms of social policy, happiness is also a very important issue because the happier a nation is, the more he/she will feel prosperous. From this perspective and in the field of social policy, happiness is considered by several thinkers as one of the components of social welfare and by others as the end of social policy, in which a person’s needs are met and his problems are managed so that he/she feels happy and satisfied. Happiness is one of the characteristics of Iranian culture and has an impact on family institution. Creating happiness by parents in the family environment can bring dynamism to the society. The happier the parents are, the happier the children will be and vice versa because the people’s happiness in the family is understandable. Because of the importance of happiness in the family environment, the aim of this  research was to explore woman’s role in family happiness.

Materials & Methods:

 The present study was a qualitative research, which was conducted based on thematic analysis in Yazd City in 2019. The study sample included all the married women aged 22-55 years, who had at least one child, in Yazd City. Some of them, including housewives to employees, had up to 3 children. Purposeful sampling was performed with maximum variability. To access the study area, the necessary arrangements were made for those, who wished to be interviewed. The interviews were held in the places where the interviewees were more comfortable and chose themselves. Some interviews were conducted at the interviewees’ homes and some were recorded outside their homes. In-depth interviews were done with 20 women until they were saturated. This meant that interviewing with new samples added no additional information to the research. The times of interviews took from 50 minutes up to an hour and 10 minutes. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. This step was performed with the knowledge of the principle of confidentiality and anonymity of the research participants. In the last step, the data were coded and analyzed by the thematic analysis technique.

Discussion of Results & Conclusions:

The results were presented in 5 final themes: acceptance of the role of motherhood, economic management, acceptance of the role of femininity, interactive-supportive strategies, and elimination of cultural stereo-types. The findings showed that the conditions that created family happiness by women were provided by accepting and playing the roles of motherhood and femininity. Also, putting aside cultural stereotypes and confronting economic problems when dealing with the members increased family happiness. The women sought to increase happiness by creating their own interactive and supportive strategies and an intimate discourse atmosphere in the family. The women of the present study did their best to have a happy and lively family environment since they considered their family members’ happiness as their own happiness. They felt happy when their spouse and children were happy.In fact, happiness for them was summed up as the happiness of their family institutions. It could be concluded that the micro- and macro-level factors in the society affected the way women created happiness in their family environments. This meant that the micro-level factors included psychological factors, such as acceptance of motherhood roles, acceptance of marital duties, and interactive-supportive strategies in individual families. Also, at the macro-level of the society, factors like cultural and economic issues inevitably affected the creation of happiness by mothers in the home environment. Consequently, a type of discourse that creates happiness through cultural and educational institutions in the family institution at the micro level and in the society at the macro level is recommended.