Marital Satisfaction By Tiffany G. Renalds: Article Analysis

Cultural Differences and Conflict for Marital Satisfaction by Tiffany G. Renalds studied how Asian women and Caucasian men attain a successful marriage through communication. In the findings of the interview the author conducted with nine couples in her thesis, three major factors affecting communication within intermarriages are language fluency, high-context and low-context communication, and family. Since these Asian women were not well versed or fluent with the English language at first, their confidence was affected. This may also have an impact with them not being able to interact well with other people and also create misunderstandings. As they spend more time in that country and learn more about the language and culture, they slowly

The data that the researcher was able to analyze came from surveys of different institutions. Wenling Chang did not personally interview Asian immigrant women in relationships with Canadian men. The author also explained that the patriarchal and collectivist society of the countries Asian women are part of has affected their views and belief on gender roles, family values, and marriage which may contribute to the cultural differences with their spouses that will place the women in disadvantaged positions. As stated by Wenling Chang, domestic violence does not only affect the wife, but it also affects the children, the family, the society, and the

The author cited other studies in her introduction, which states that intercultural relationships often start with a higher risk of unsuccessful unions (Brown, 1987), and are also disposed to divorce and marital dissatisfaction. (Brown, 1987; Fu et al., 2001; Hegar & Greif, 1994; Sung, 1990) These relationships are also prone to domestic violence. Hence, the author’s study focuses on couples that have successful marriages to show and prove that not all intercultural marriages are unstable and unhappy. Based on her study, despite having many stressors in their marriages, the couples that were interviewed shared that they constantly made efforts to make their marriage work. From learning their spouse’s culture, coping from the culture, counseling, continuous support from their spouse, friends and families, proper communication, to practicing a give-and-take attitude towards each other. Although the interviewees’ marriages are not what they expected it to be, all of them are happy and contented with