Intimate relations : a study of married women's friendships
Intimate relations : a study of married women's friendships
This study is principally concerned with how female friendships are managed in the context of marriage, and asks whether it is husbands or friends who are sources of intimacy for married women. While the overall aim is to explore the interplay between marriage and friendship within women's networks, it also considers the social landscape in which these friendships occur. In focusing on the friendship patterns and practices of a specific socio-economic group, it is argued that the structure, content and importance of these women's friendships can best be understood by looking at the broader context of their domestic lives, particularly with regard to how these important ties relate to their experiences of marriage and motherhood.
By drawing on empirical data gathered by multiple in-depth interviews, participant observation and archival analysis, this thesis questions societal and cultural assumptions about married women's friendships, and challenges the description of these relationships as secondary and unimportant. In the substantive chapters, a number of distinctive features around the style and practices of middle-class friendships are highlighted: the importance of individual friends in terms of emotional support and identity construction is one; that larger group friendship circles are significant sites of pleasure, recreation and fun is another. Perhaps most importantly, though, it is demonstrated that talking with friends is qualitatively different from talking with husbands. The failure of husbands to communicate in ways the women in this study valued, compounded their dissatisfaction with other aspects of their marital lives, and accenuated the significance of their close, female friends. In conclusion, it is be argued that the organisation of these friendship ties, the level of commitment these women have to their friends, and the significant role they lay in their lives reflects not only wider social change but questions too our understandings of contemporary marriage and coupledom in Britain today.
University of Southampton
1999
Harrison, Kaeren Sylvia
(1999)
Intimate relations : a study of married women's friendships.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
This study is principally concerned with how female friendships are managed in the context of marriage, and asks whether it is husbands or friends who are sources of intimacy for married women. While the overall aim is to explore the interplay between marriage and friendship within women's networks, it also considers the social landscape in which these friendships occur. In focusing on the friendship patterns and practices of a specific socio-economic group, it is argued that the structure, content and importance of these women's friendships can best be understood by looking at the broader context of their domestic lives, particularly with regard to how these important ties relate to their experiences of marriage and motherhood.
By drawing on empirical data gathered by multiple in-depth interviews, participant observation and archival analysis, this thesis questions societal and cultural assumptions about married women's friendships, and challenges the description of these relationships as secondary and unimportant. In the substantive chapters, a number of distinctive features around the style and practices of middle-class friendships are highlighted: the importance of individual friends in terms of emotional support and identity construction is one; that larger group friendship circles are significant sites of pleasure, recreation and fun is another. Perhaps most importantly, though, it is demonstrated that talking with friends is qualitatively different from talking with husbands. The failure of husbands to communicate in ways the women in this study valued, compounded their dissatisfaction with other aspects of their marital lives, and accenuated the significance of their close, female friends. In conclusion, it is be argued that the organisation of these friendship ties, the level of commitment these women have to their friends, and the significant role they lay in their lives reflects not only wider social change but questions too our understandings of contemporary marriage and coupledom in Britain today.
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Published date: 1999
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Local EPrints ID: 464088
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464088
PURE UUID: 41a33e61-97e9-4b72-ba1b-6a2c09c78a70
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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 21:02
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 21:02
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Author:
Kaeren Sylvia Harrison
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