Investigation of the Rules in the Turkish Family Structure in the Context of the Nuclear and Family of Origin

This study aimed to examine married couples’ descriptions about themselves, spouses, mothers, and fathers and their views about the rules in their nuclear and families of origin and the existence of rules in the family. The study group consisted of 12 married individuals, including 8 females and 4 males, who were aged between 23 and 49, were not married to another participant, lived in the central county of a province in the central Anatolia region, and were selected using criterion sampling method, which is one of the purposive sampling methods. The study used the phenomenological research design, which is one of the qualitative research approaches. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, one of the qualitative research techniques, and analyzed with the content analysis method. The results of the study indicated that altruism and submissiveness were the common and prominent descriptions of the female participants about themselves and the descriptions of all participants about their mothers, whereas cold and distant were common descriptions of the participants about their mothers and fathers. It was found that the rules about couple relationships, family relationships, parenting, and spirituality/values were similar in nuclear and families of origin but that although the rules of the relationships with the family of origin/relatives and budget management were expressed in nuclear families, they were not expressed in families of origin.