Family is a combined social system included economic, political, religious and

educational subsystems. Any of the change in any part of this may affect the entire
family, and it lead to unhappy married life.

1.1 Marriage as a Concept

The people enter into wedlock with a lot of expectations and if the
expectations are not fulfilled the problems arise in the family. The aim of each
ones life is to have happiness, the materialistic security, security of care and
health are the primary factors and to avail these factors throughout all the stages of
life, a system in the interest of all its members is evolved by every society and this
system is called marriage.
Unhappy marriages have increased susceptibility to mental and physical health
problems. In a comprehensive review of literature M C Allister (1995), Veroff,
Kulka and Douvan (1981) highlight the marital problems will really affect the
physical and mental health. They concluded that marital quality is an important
factor to up bring a healthy married life.
Marriage is not just living together rather it is a special bond
shared

between two souls, who tie the wedding knot after promising to be

companions for a life time. It is the physical, mental and spiritual union of two
souls. In short, marriage is a social contract between two individuals that unites

their lives legally, economically and emotionally. Marriage also has a great role in
building up the society because the very basic foundation of society is family.

1.2 Women in Marriage

In olden days women were being chattel of men, so that the
marriages are held at early age. But now a days people understood the need of
physical and psychological maturity of the women to get marry and to run the
family effectively. After the marriage the women have a great role in the family to
run it perfectly. Women should have care for her family, especially her husband
and also she need to handle the home and keep up social activities.
In ancient period men and women have equal status, later in
medieval period it was changed. Sati, child marriages, etc. came up to suppress the
women. But now in this modern period women participate in all activities such as
education, sports, politics, art, culture, science, technology, etc.
In olden days, they are being married meant to provide care for
their husbands and fulfill their domestic chores as a part of the role of the wife,
while their husbands were the bread winners. But in this modern world the younger
women says that both men and women can be the breadwinners, both the partners
are ready to compromise in order to run the family and it is reached up to the
cooking, ironing, cleaning even the childcare. The new generation comes in to the

conclusion every responsibilities that is there in family can be shared equally. That
is the joint effort that is taken by the men and women in modern society to lead a
life better.

1.3 Family
Family can be defined as an institution with lots of relationships between
individuals in that institution and functions as a system
Family can be categorized as functional family and
dysfunctional family. Functional family can be defined as a family where there is
good relationship between the family members and they can solve the problem
arising in family by themselves where.
1.4 Quality of Marriage
Marital quality is often used in a sense that includes marital adjustment. Marital
adjustment is an aspect of relationship between spouses and that factor may help to
lead a married life with quality. Marriage has been becoming increasingly unstable
for the past few decades. It is mostly because of the poor quality of marital life.
According to the Spinier and Lewis marital quality is the subjective evaluation of a
married couples relationship on a number of dimensions and evaluations.
Marital quality is really a generic term which serves as an umbrella term and
incorporate three concepts.

1) Marital satisfaction (refers to an individuals subjective experience of the

marriage. Individuals are usually satisfied with their needs are being met and
when the individuals expectations and desires are being satisfied).
2) Marital happiness (is defined as the level of personal happiness an individual
feels about his/her marriage).
3) Marital adjustment (it may refer to the process whereby individuals adjust
their life styles to the life style of marriage, marital stability also included in
it).
There are some linkages between womens employment and
marital quality. The researches which have done early say that the effects of
womens employment on marital quality are high and also suggested that the wives
employment lowered the marital quality in family life. Later studies found little or
no effect of womens employment on either husbands or wives marital quality.
More recent works highly promote that wives employment in marriage life and
also they say that it affects the family life positively.
Dr. Neil Chadwick says, the essential components for total
quality marriage are Companionship, Communication, Commitment, Combat and
Compassion. And in some other researches some of the professors found out the
factors that affect the marital quality are marriage age, children, womens
employment, spouses social roles, religion, personal characters, disparities in social
status or division of household chores, etc. In short to maintain the marital quality

is very difficult because any negative change in any part of the family may affect
the marital quality.
1.5 Employed women in Marriage
Though the married employed women have a lot of stress and lack
of time to spend with her family, there is lot of benefits for them. More than the
demerits there are merits in the family life of each employed women. Employed
womens marital quality is better when compared with the unemployed womens
because the unemployed woman is financially stable and she is able to contribute
to the growth of her family and also she will be a good decision maker.
A working woman is always an advantage for men in the family.
Some the advantages that men get from the working womens or wives are:a) Responsibility: she understands the concept of responsibility and how
difficult it is to bear. So that the woman try to stops her from taking
treacherous and extremist stands the way women do in todays world. The
men get little free from the more responsibilities and if they share it will be
easy to run the family without any much burden.
b) Liberation of men: Men get liberation from more things and he can be the
primary bread winner of the family. The small and basic needs in the family

can meet by women, so that men can concentrate in other areas for the
upliftment of the family.
When both are employed, men will get time and space to be
relaxed and women will get a chance to prove their talents and abilities. The
mutual understanding among husband and wife will surely help to run the family
very smoothly and in a good manner. The employed women usually have the
decision making power that also will help the husband to be away from lit of
tensions and stress. Employment can affect the family negatively. But mostly
through the proper management of the house hold work, meet the needs of the
husband and children, taking enough time to love and care may avoid the
problems, so through that the effect of employment in family will be positive.
1.6 Unemployed Women in Marriage.
Unemployed women are fully depended on her husband and have to
bear all the burns of the husband. The other problem which arise for the
unemployed women are loneliness, because when the men and children go out for
their work or school the women will be alone at the home. Especially the women
those who educated and talented in any area, they will be depressed or feels
loneliness while she is at home.

The financial problems in family are increasing more in day to day

life. If the men alone are the breadwinner means, it will be difficult to carry out the
things and manage the family. The women or the wives are educated and able to
handle small things in the family may help the husband from their stress and
burden. If both are employed, it can manage easily and if not, it is difficult an also
all the burden will be upon the men in the family.
The unemployed women face difficult to take decision by her
sometimes. The decision making power of the women itself helps the family more
especially in the household works. So in short the unemployed faces lot of
problems in the family.
Some merits also there like, unemployed women can manage the
household work well and also can give love and care for the husband and children
because the time is plenty to spend for them.
An unemployed woman also can manage all these things both the
household work and job. So to help the husband in financial area and the needs of
the family can be given by them. Both the job and family should go hand in hand.
It brings the quality of marriage in life.

1.7 Significance of the Study

To find out the marital quality of marital life among married

employed and unemployed women. Based on the findings, to focus the factors
which are the root causes for poor marital quality of life and help both the
employed an unemployed women to have a better quality of marital life.