Beyond the Couple: A Qualitative Analysis of Successful In‐law Relationships in Iran

• Author: Mona Cheraghi,Fereshteh Motabi,Mansoureh S. Sadeghi,Mohammad A. Mazaheri,Leili Panaghi
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12389
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019

Beyond the Couple: A Qualitative Analysis of

Successful In-law Relationships in Iran

MONA CHERAGHI*

MOHAMMAD A. MAZAHERI*

FERESHTEH MOTABI

†

LEILI PANAGHI

†

MANSOUREH S. SADEGHI

†

In-laws can play a significant role in the success or failure of marriages around the

world. In the Middle East, recent quantitative research indicates that having trouble with

in-laws is a major predictor of divorce in Iran. To explore this further, we undert ook a

qualitative (grounded theory) analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 Iranian daughters-

in-law, five sons-in-law, three mothers-in-law, three fathers-in-law, and three expert family

clinicians. Emergent concepts, themes, and coding categories were consistent with a Fam-

ily Triad Model (FTM) of successful marital and in-law relationships, wherein each spouse

must (a) form we-ness with their partner, (b) establish flexible boundaries between them-

selves and their families of origin, and (c) join their in-laws. A higher-order core category

suggested that optimal couple and family functioning depends on the coherence or balance

of these functions across the triadic role components of spouse, child-in-law, and family-in-

law (or family-of-origin). In the changing cultural context of Iran, where blood relations

have traditionally held primacy over marital relations, such triadic coherence appears cru-

cial to marital success, at least from the perspective of many women. Our FTM results also

highlight the importance of taking in-laws into account when planning educational, pre-

ventative, or clinical interventions.

Keywords: Family Triad Model; Iranian Families; In-Law Relations; We-ness; Marital

Success; Family of Origin

Fam Proc 58:936–953, 2019

More than in US American and European countries, Iranian families play a central

role in helping their children select a spouse, supporting the new couple in starting

marital life, and contributing to the quality of their marriage (Fatehizadeh, Ardakani, &

Nasresfahani, 2005; Jalali, 2005; Mazaheri, Sadeghi, Nasrabadi, Ansarinejad, & Abbasi,

2009; Mazaheri et al., 2008). Still, the influence of families upon a couple’s life can be a

proverbial double-edged sword: On one hand, parents and in-laws sometimes act as media-

tors to help distressed couples resolve conflicts and strengthen their marriage (Fate-

hizadeh et al., 2005); on the other hand, they can also be the major source of a couple’s

conflicts (Abbasalizadeh, 2010; Cheraghi, Mazaheri, Motabi, Panaghi, & Sadeghi, 2014).

*Faculty of Education and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

†

Family Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mona Cheraghi, Faculty of Education

and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: m_cheraghi@sbu.ac.ir.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Michael Rohrbaugh, whose help and guidance has improved the

paper significantly.

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Family Process, Vol. 58, No. 4, 2019 ©2018 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12389

Although marriage is common in all societies, factors that influence successful marriage

depend greatly on culture (Hatfield, Rapson, & Martel, 2007). For exam ple, traditional

Iranian families expect faithful children to prefer blood relatives over others, regarding

strangers and outsiders with suspicion and viewing family members as the few trustwor-

thy people in their lives (Arasteh & Arasteh, 1970; Armaki, 2007; Beeman, 1986; Pir-

moradi, 2004; Sariolghalam, 2011; Sorayya, 2009). With children after marriage, their

continuing emotional dependence and fierce loyalty to the family-of-origin may result in

spouses siding with family against their partner, with competition and even hostility

around in-law relationships fueling conflict within the couple (Cheraghi & Ebrahimi,

2018; Ghandehari, 2003). The fact that negative references to in-laws and in-law relation-

ships appear frequently in Iranian proverbs and other cultural artifacts should therefore

not be surprising (Hejazi, 2006; Khazraei, 2003; Khodayar, 1985; Shahri, 2000).

Nevertheless, recent globalization has led to some distancing from traditional values

and standards regarding marriage and family in modern Iran. Although favoring blood

relationships over marital relationships is still the dominant cultural norm, calls for new

(some would say higher) standards are becoming more common, especially among women

who value autonomy, independence, and individualism (Janadeleh & Rahnama, 2014;

Kurzman, 2008) or want more intimacy and affection in the marital relationship

(Malekasgar, Motabi, & Mazaheri, 2014). This, perhaps in combination with reaction

against other patriarchal norms, has led some women to be less tolerance of in-laws’ hos-

tility and interference in their marriage. As Iran’s divorce rate continues to climb

(National Organization for Civil Registration, 2016), so does the urgency of better under-

standing how family and in-law relationships contribute to the success or failure of a cou-

ple’s marriage in this cultural context. If nothing else, it seems apparent that the

institution of marriage in Iran goes beyond the simple union of two partners to include,

inherently, the families and in-laws of each.

Recent quantitative research on Iranian marriages, including several studies of our

own, has begun to shed light on these matters and sets the stage for the qualitative find-

ings we report here. For example, an observational study coding the actual interactions of

distressed and nondistressed Iranian couples found higher rates of criticism and contempt

for in-laws than studies in US American and European countries studies ty pically find

(Sadeghi, Mazaheri, Motabi, & Zahedi, 2012). Similarly, in self-report surveys, insulting

one’s in-laws, blaming in-laws for marital conflicts, and disagreeing about how to deal

with each other’s family emerge as the most common topics of arguments among malad-

justed couples; and applicants for divorce in Iran cite discord with in-laws as the most

common cause of marital dissolution (Ghotbi, Naeeni, Jazayeri, & Rahimi, 2004; Mazaheri

et al., 2008; Samani, 2008; Zarg ar & Neshat-Doust, 2008).

Our own research in this area began with developing a questionnaire instrument to

measure different aspects of in-law relationships (Cheraghi et al., 2014) . Factor analysis

of 40 items suggested by experts on Iranian family relations led to construction of four

scales related to the respondent’s overall relationship satisfaction with both partners’ fam-

ilies, relationship quality with in-laws, relationship quality with one’s own family of ori-

gin, and the couple giving or receiving help from the two families. In a sample of 172

married Iranians (109 women and 63 men), each of these in-law focused scales—and espe-

cially the first—correlated strongly and significantly with the respondent’s satisfaction

with his or her own marriage, as measured by Olson’s (2006) ENRICH instrument.

The results also revealed important differences in how men and women perceive the

quality of their in-law relationships, possibly reflecting the patriarchal nature of Iranian

society, and lower status of women in the family power pyramid. For example, women had

lower overall satisfaction with in-law relationships than men, more often believed that in-

laws had irrational expectations of them, and more often said they would inform both

Fam. Proc., Vol. 58, December, 2019

CHERAGHI, MAZAHERI, MOTABI, PANAGHI, & SADEGHI

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