| The purpose of this study was to investigate the formation of marriage commitment through the study of ideas and narratives of a selection of couples in the transition from single life to marriage. Through interviews with each partner of four recently married couples, narratives were built describing the history of the relationships from the perspective of each person including their concerns, reasons for their decision, and their thoughts on the nature of the commitment each felt he or she had made. The transcripts were systematically explored for meaning using a modified constant comparative method.;The core category which emerged from the analysis was that the formation of marriage commitment could be described as a process of the couple actively constructing or co-authoring a marriage story. That is, they wove together two separate life stories to form a common vision of how they would spend their adult life time together. The stories contained a marriage project outlining negotiated goals, and with growth as a major objective. They had pivotal commitment events in common including first meeting, first date, crisis, living together, decision to marry, and a wedding. They also contained four major transformational themes, these were: interpersonal (the story of the couple and the intimacy they shared); personal (the story of the self actualizing in the context of the marriage); social (the story of the couple in relation to the community and the institution of marriage); and cosmic (the transcendental aspects of marriage). These themes were transformational in that participants described experiences of personal development, maturation and identity adjustment.;The content of the marriage commitment, according to the participants, was a deal to love, respect, and be faithful to one another, to share resources, fulfill each other's needs, to make their relationship the number one commitment in their lives, and to stick with it even in difficulty. They agreed, essentially, to believe in their marriage story and try to make it come true. Their concerns focused on the possibility that the story might change from a happy to an unhappy one because it failed to be fulfilling, or because of unforeseen changes to the plot. Ultimately, all considered they would break their commitment rather than live out an unhappy ending. The theoretical, empirical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. |
