Married Women's Rate of Autonomy and the Social Factors Involved A Study of Women Residing in the City of Mashhad

Changes such as higher literacy and employment, extension of virtual spaces (IT), have caused the Iranian women to encounter a dilemma in their transition from a traditional mechanical society to a modern organic one. The traditional social structure, on the one hand, requires that women perform traditional functions. The newly arisen opportunities, on the other hand, encourage women to develop an independent personality so that to act without a passive dependence on others. Considering the fact that in the Iranian society the family is still regarded as the most vital social institution, this poses an anomic situation by which the survival of the family is threatened. This paper attempts to find an appropriate solution to the question as to how the society can pass through this crucial stage. In doing so< the authors critically examine various definitions of women’s autonomy, and put forward their own definition. This has been achieved using various theoretical approaches with an aim to identifying the factors affecting women’s autonomy; by either weakening or strengthening it. A questionnaire was used to test the independent and dependent variables of the study. The results of the stepwise regression analysis indicated that out of all the factors under study, five were of the greatest significance, explaining 61.4% of dependent variable changes. These factors are found to be as the following and in that order: self-concept, privacy, socio-cultural relations network, income and the husband’s social status. Also, path analysis showed that the intermediate variables directly and the structural variables indirectly affect women’s autonomy.