Does the quality of marriage depend on the ability to manage conflict? A comprehensive study on males

Pages: 1939-1945
Rituparna Basak (Department of Psychology, Muralidhar Girls College, Kolkata, West Bengal)
Sanchita Pakrashi (Department of Applied Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal)

The study was conducted to understand empirically if husbands in harmonious marriages have better ability to manage communication conflict with their spouses as opposed to that of the husbands in discordant marriage. Total numbers of subjects included were 160 among which the number of discordant husbands and harmonious husbands were 80 in each case belonging to the Bengali Hindu community from the different parts of the city of Kolkata, India with purposive sampling technique. The two groups were compared using the scales: ‘Marital Quality Scale’ (M.Q.S.) and ‘Communication Conflict Predisposition’ (C.C.P.).t statistics, correlation and multiple regression analysis were conducted to analyze the data. Results showed that discordant and harmonious husbands differed significantly in their quality of married life as well as abilities of managing conflicts with their spouses. Moreover, harmonious husbands had better feelings and respect for their spouses with better values while cooperating with others in comparison to discordant husbands. Poor marital quality was correlated with poor ability to manage conflicts and vice versa. But Proneness to manage conflict was unable to predict marital quality for both harmonious and discordant husbands.