Negotiating power and relationship throughout marital life: narratives of middle-aged women from Turkey

Abstract

Intersectional approaches call for the study of gender-power relations as dynamic processes shaped in the context of social structures and locations, and invite the representation of diverse voices. However, these ideas are yet to be fully embraced in empirical family and marriage research. The present study addresses this gap and employs a qualitative design to investigate women's accounts of the spousal relationship and marital power over their marital life cycles in a non-Western context, Turkey. Data comes from individual interviews with 24 middle-aged women who come from different socio-economic levels and reside in different parts of the country. The analysis was conducted in two steps. In the first step, an inductive thematic analysis revealed 4 main themes: (1) transition to marriage, (2) relating to domesticity, (3) negotiating marital power, and (4) emotional tone of marriage. In the second step, a deductive rereading of the data demonstrated variations among women's experiences depending mostly on the intersection of patriarchal tradition with their socio-economic realities, and partly on their geographical locations. Women's accounts pointed to diverse ways of negotiating marital relationship and power over time, including traditional accommodation, resistance/opposition, and sharing/mutual love. The study argues that an intersectional lens can provide new insights into women's agency, empowerment and increasing autonomy in marital relations.