Understanding the personality of single and married women

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: In contemporary Indian society, there is now restructuring and reorientation of a women’s role. The importance of studying married and single women has now become more pertinent because of the changing attitudes, increased literacy rate of women, and their involvement in politics and economic development. The present study aimed to understand whether the status of being “married” or “single” influences a woman’s personality.METHODS: The sample consisted of 52 women from New Delhi, India. The NEO-FFI-3 (McCrae & Costa, 2010) was used to measure the five domains of personality: neuroticism (N); extraversion (E); openness to experience (O); agreeableness (A); and conscientiousness (C).FINDINGS: The analysis showed no significant differences in personality between single and married women.CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the status of being married or single was, alone, not enough to differentiate their personalities. However, married women have varying moods and the capability for communicating and interacting with others more effortlessly in comparison to single women. This paves way for the demystification of the notion of marriage and provides avenues for deconstructing the position of marriage as a norm. Social workers should be aware of gender inequalities and bias, including about status of married and single women.