Study Finds Mothers More Liberal About Marriage Than Daughters

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Those who believe the next generation is always a bit more radical than the last are in for a surprise. A new study from the University of Arkansas indicates that mothers have a more liberal attitude about marriage than their daughters do.

Jan Goines - a graduate student in the communications department and a mother herself - conducted the study via electronic survey, asking single women aged 18-30 to answer questions about their personal views on marriage and about the views their mothers espoused.

Despite reporting that their mothers worked outside the home and advocated personal and financial self-reliance, the daughters themselves took a more traditional stance toward matrimony. They upheld that marriage was a lifetime commitment that offered the greatest personal rewards even if it hampered their career plans.

"I really expected the older generation to be more conservative," said Goines. "I think daughters hold an idealized vision of how marriage should be whereas mothers have learned from their life experiences that the traditional model of marriage doesn’t always work."

Goines conducted the study to measure how communication between mothers and daughters influences the views of each. She hoped to answer questions about which messages daughters remember receiving from their mothers; whether those messages were reflected in the daughters’ own views; and whether the messages varied according to the mothers’ own marital, career and educational profile.

To do so, Goines constructed an electronic questionnaire that consisted of three sections. The first section contained questions about the daughter’s personal profile, including age, state of residence, educational level and what age she considered ideal for a first marriage. The second section contained survey questions about the daughter’s views on marriage and the views her mother held. The final section asked the daughter questions about her mother’s demographic profile.

With the help of the UA Office of University IT Services, Goines posted the survey on a web page, then distributed information about the survey to young, single women across the nation via email. During the four days that the survey was posted, 115 women responded, and 102 of their surveys were used in the study.

The young women included in the study were aged 18-30 and never before married. They represented 11 states in the northern, eastern, southern and midwestern regions of the U.S., and 87 percent of the sample - 88 women - attended universities.

In taking the survey, respondents answered a series of questions in which they were asked to evaluate a statement about marriage by choosing one of five answers: always, generally, sometimes, rarely or never.

Goines had assigned a one to five number value to each of these choices, with "always" representing one and "never" representing five. On this ascending value scale, a score of one indicated the most liberal viewpoint while a score of five indicated the most conservative and traditional.

After receiving each survey, Goines separated the daughter’s own views about marriage from the views she attributed to her mother. Goines then calculated the average mean score for each. The 102 surveys revealed a mean score of 2.74 for daughters, while the mothers averaged a score of 1.82.

In fact, mothers scored consistently lower than daughters on all but two marital issues - the sharing of housework and the sharing of financial responsibility.

"Many of the mothers in this survey were reported to have significant outside work experience, but they still believed that housework was mainly a mother’s duty while financial security was the father’s," Goines said.

"That’s probably a generational difference between mothers and daughters, but it shows that shared responsibility is becoming more of an issue in marriages," she added. "Young women today expect their husbands to help out."

Other results revealed that daughters were most conservative - scoring above three points - on four main issues. They believed that marriage was essential for raising children, and that it required a life-long commitment. Furthermore, they believed the state of matrimony provided the greatest personal rewards above any other lifestyle. Daughters also expected to sacrifice some of their independence and career aspirations for marriage.

This latter issue represented the greatest discrepancy between mothers and daughters. With a score of 3.74, daughters anticipated a loss of independence, while mothers - with a score of 1.79 - believed that marriage did not necessarily hamper career goals.

Yet even with mothers working outside the home and providing more liberal, independent role models for their daughters, such discrepancies in their viewpoints indicate that women are confused about the nature of marriage in these modern times. Goines attributes some of this confusion to the fact that daughters have not yet experienced marriage, but she suspects a bigger problem - that society itself is confused.

"One of the things that really concerns me about American culture is this tendency to grasp on to an idea and refuse to hear any evidence to the contrary," she said. "The traditional model of marriage is no longer practical or healthy, yet it continues to be idealized by the media, the churches, the government."

And it continues to be idealized by the people. Goines believes that the traditional ideals upheld by young women may lead them to disappointment. Rather than understanding that marriage necessitates compromise, that it includes conflict and that it requires communication, women may be expecting an unattainable level of perfection from their husbands and families.

"A lot of younger women may realize that they won’t have a fairy tale marriage, but they continue to perpetuate this idealized vision of it. My concern is that it makes us feel bad when we don’t live up to it," Goines said. "When your marriage doesn’t live up to your expectations, you feel flawed, disillusioned, cheated, and that can lead to divorce."

In other words, young women who envision a lifetime of romance and passion may be tying the knot on their own noose. Goines offers one piece of advice: "Listen to your mothers."

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