Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Vol 36, No 1 (2026)

Font Size:  Small  Medium  Large

Dowry, Marital Coping and Marital Satisfaction in Married Women

Umm-e-Habiba Umm-e-Habiba, Anila Kamal (PhD)

Abstract


Marital relationships are significantly shaped by dowry practices. The continued demand for dowries leads to interpersonal problems, demanding coping strategies and influencing marriage satisfaction. The present research aimed to ascertain the dowries impact (positive and negative) and marital coping strategies on the marriage satisfaction. A correlational research design, with a sample of 486 married women was recruited using convenient sampling strategy. The mean age at the time of their marriage was (M = 23.03, SD = 3.00) with a maximum marriage duration of 7 years with at least 1 child. Assessment was done using; The Dowry scale (Sultana, 2002), The ENRICH Marital Satisfaction scale (Fowers & Olson, 1993) and Marital Coping Inventory (Bowman, 1990).Correlation analysis revealed negative impact of dowry leads to lower marriage satisfaction (r = -.11, p < .05), conflict, self-blame, self-interest and avoidance leads to lower marital satisfaction while positive approach represented positive relation with marriage satisfaction. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that negative impacts of dowry are a stronger indicator of marital satisfaction. Step-wise regression analysis revealed marital coping strategies jointly explained 38% of the variation in marital satisfaction, with self-blame emerged as the stronger negative predictor. Among the demographic characteristics, joint family system corresponded to greater marital satisfaction. The findings indicate that reducing dowry-related stressors and strengthening adaptive marital coping skills can improve marital satisfaction, guiding culturally sensitive counseling, premarital education, and policy interventions.Keywords: Dowry’ positive impact, dowry’ negative impact, marriage satisfaction, marital coping strategies, women

Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.