LYNETTE F. HOELTER, WILLIAM G. AXINN, AND DIRGHA J.

GHIMIRE
University of Michigan
Social Change, Premarital Nonfamily Experiences,
and Marital Dynamics
We investigate the effects of nonfamily experi-
ences on marital relationships in a setting char-
acterized by high levels of arranged marriage
until recently. Drawing on theoretical frame-
works for the study of families and social
change, we argue that the expansion of oppor-
tunities for nonfamily experiences will increase
the likelihood of marital relationships based on
an emotional bond between husbands and
wives. Using data from 3,724 individuals in
rural Nepal, we nd consistent effects of educa-
tional experiences across multiple dimensions
of marriage. These effects point toward the
spread of education as a stimulus to marriages
characterized by higher levels of love and dis-
cussions between spouses, and lower levels of
conict and spouse abuse. Results suggest that
studies of marital dynamics in non-Western set-
tings provide a fruitful avenue for new research
on marriage.
The study of change and variation in the quality
of marital relationships has become an impor-
tant subeld of family studies, generating a sub-
stantial volume of new research every year.
Most of this research examines the quality of
marital relationships in rich, industrialized
Western countries, and there is relatively little
research on change and variation in dimensions
of marital relationships in the poor countries of
Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A key reason
is that the day-to-day meaning of marital rela-
tionships varies dramatically across these differ-
ent social, economic, cultural, and institutional
contexts. Nonetheless, careful examination of
variations in marital dynamics in dramatically
different contexts is likely to yield both impor-
tant evidence of the extent to which processes
determining marital quality are context specic,
and key insights into social changes most likely
to reshape the quality of marital relationships in
the long term. The aim of this article is to docu-
ment factors associated with marital dynamics
in a non-Western context in the midst of dra-
matic social, economic, and institutional change.
We examine marital relationships in rural
Nepal because marriages in this setting were
virtually all arranged by parents until very
recently, and dramatic changes in the social,
economic, and institutional context have stimu-
lated a steep increase in the participation of in-
dividuals in the selection of their own spouses
(Ghimire, Axinn, Yabiku, & Thornton, 2003).
Rural Nepal is a setting in which love, attrac-
tion, and an emotional bond between prospec-
tive husbands and wives were not important
expectations of the marital relationship until
quite recently (Bennett, 1983; Fricke, 1986).
The setting, then, provides a unique opportunity
to examine the relationships between various
dimensions of social change and the emergence
of marital relationships based on an emotional
bond. Theories about family change suggest
Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, 426
Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 (lhoelter@
umich.edu).
Key Words: education, marital dynamics, marriage in Nepal,
modes of organization.
Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (December 2004): 11311151 1131
that the shift in husbands and wives emotional
bonds can bring fundamental change in families
and family formation behaviors (Malhotra,
1991; Rindfuss & Morgan, 1983; Thornton,
Chang, & Sun, 1984). These changes may also
inuence factors such as feelings of love, com-
munication, and violence that affect perceptions
of the relationship. The Nepalese setting is also
unique in that the caste system was legal until
1961, perpetuating substantial ethnic variations
in marital behavior (Ahearn, 2004; Bista, 1972;
Dastider, 1995; Hofer, 1979). Finally, Nepalese
society is characterized by substantial gender-
based stratication (Acharya & Bennett, 1981;
Bennett; Stone, 1978), but recent social changes
have signicantly narrowed the gender gap in
important nonfamily experiences such as educa-
tion (Ahearn; Beutel & Axinn, 2002). As a
result, empirical investigation into the various
dynamics of marriage in this setting allows us
to both document differences based on ethnicity
and gender and examine the extent to which the
effect of social change on variations in marital
relationships depends on ethnicity or gender.
We construct a theoretical framework that
combines aspects of the study of marital quality
in rich, industrialized countries such as the
United States with ideas used in studying the
effect of social changes on the social organiza-
tion of marriage in Asia. This perspective ac-
knowledges the multidimensional nature of
marriage and the need to formulate hypotheses
in relation to specic relationship dimensions
rather than assuming a single underlying con-
struct (e.g., Fincham & Bradbury, 1987; Johnson,
White, Edwards, & Booth, 1986; Lewis &
Spanier, 1979; Sabatelli, 1988). We focus on
expressions of love and conict, communica-
tion about childbearing, and domestic violence
as key marital dynamics in this setting. Our the-
oretical framework emphasizes the importance
of changes in local community contexts for the
social organization of families and the life
courses of individuals (Axinn & Yabiku, 2001;
Ghimire et al., 2003; Thornton & Lin, 1994; see
also Goode, 1964). This emphasis leads us to
focus on the effect of premarital nonfamily and
early marital experiences on the later quality of
marital relationships.
Measures of multiple dimensions of marital
dynamics from rural Asian settings undergoing
dramatic social changes are rare. The unique
study we use included systematic survey inter-
views with 1,794 husbands and 1,930 wives
about their marital relationships. The same
study also provides life history calendar mea-
sures of premarital nonfamily experiences and
early marital experiences. Finally, detailed doc-
umentation of the local social context, ethnicity,
and parental characteristics allows us to con-
struct comprehensive models of factors affect-
ing variations in dimensions of marriage within
this setting.
BACKGROUND AND
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Marriages in Hindu areas of South Asia have
been greatly inuenced by Hindu religious doc-
trines and sociopolitical conditions. Hinduism
has explicit prescriptions about individuals life
transitions, sexuality, timing of marriage and
choice of a marriage partner, and fertility inten-
tions and behaviors. For a Hindu, marriage is
a sacrament that must be performed regardless
of the tness of the parties to bear responsibili-
ties of a mated existence (Mace & Mace,
1960, p. 149). According to Hindu Shastra, men
should marry at age 25. Although women should
marry at a slightly younger age, their most
essential qualication for marriage is virginity.
Giving a young girl in marriage (Kanadayan) is
believed to have religious merit for the parents,
but giving a nonvirgin girl is considered a sin
and is subject to a ne (Mace & Mace; Thapa,
1988; Vaidya, Manandhar, & Joshi, 1993).
Hindu society considers marriage to be more
than just a simple bond between two individ-
uals. Marriage is a bond between several fami-
lies and a continuation of the family line. It
therefore has deep religious, social, and institu-
tional signicance (Bennett, 1983; Bista, 1972;
Dastider, 1995; Hofer, 1979). In fact, numerous
Hindu religious doctrines prohibit the involve-
ment of young people themselves in the choice
of a spouse, appealing to both spiritual and social
sensitivities (Banerjee, 1984; Berreman, 1972;
Majupuria & Majupuria, 1989). Thus, marriages
in Hindu societies have a long history of being
arranged by parents and other relatives, with no
involvement of the husband- and wife-to-be in
the choice of the spouse.
During the period of British colonization of
the Indian subcontinent, Hindus began to inter-
act with people who believed that spouse choice
should be based on love, and that individuals
should choose spouses freely and independently
(Macfarlane, 1986; Smith, 1973; Tilly & Scott,
1132 Journal of Marriage and Family
1978; Whyte, 1990). Nepal was never a colony,
however, and Hindus in this country had little
exposure to such alternative views of marriage
until the recent past. In fact, Nepal remained
politically and economically isolated from other
countries until the mid-1950s, when Nepals
king rst opened the country to interaction with
non-Hindu nations and peoples (Bista, 1972;
Blaikie, Cameron, & Seddon, 1980). Since that
time, particularly beginning in the mid-1970s,
Nepal has experienced great social and eco-
nomic change, including the spread of formal
education, wage work, government services,
transportation and communication infrastruc-
ture, and mass media. The result has been a reor-
ganization of individuals daily social lives and
an inux of new ideas and values within the
lifetime of Nepals current population.
Although marriage in Nepal is still universal,
the effect of these social changes on marital be-
haviors and dynamicsespecially in the form
of age at rst marriage, participation in spouse
choice, age at childbearing, and contraceptive
useare already apparent. For example, the
mean age at rst marriage was 13 for those who
married between 1936 and 1945, and 18 for
those who married between 1966 and 1975
(Yabiku, 2002). Similarly, the proportion of in-
dividuals in each marriage cohort who partici-
pated in the selection of a spouse rose from
virtually zero in the 19361945 marriage cohort
to approximately 50% in the 19861995 mar-
riage cohort (Ghimire et al., 2003). Similar
changes have also been found in other areas that
are likely to play important roles in marital
dynamics, such as timing of rst birth (Ghimire,
2003) and contraceptive use (Axinn & Yabiku,
2001). Although we do have information on the
changes in marital behaviors, we know little
about how these changes inuence marital rela-
tionship dynamics.
Social Change and the
Social Organization of Marriage
To guide our investigation of the links between
social change in Nepal and individuals views
of their marital relationships, we use the mode
of organization framework (Thornton & Fricke,
1987; Thornton, Fricke, Yang, & Chang, 1994).
This perspective focuses on the extent to which
the activities of daily social lifeincluding
authority patterns, information ow, living ar-
rangements, production, consumption, sociali-
zation, leisure, and reproductionare organized
by family versus nonfamily social institutions
and organizations. Rural Nepal has experienced
a rapid increase in access to schools, employ-
ment centers, marketplaces, bus services, movie
theaters, dormitories, and government services
(Axinn & Yabiku, 2001). The proliferation of
these new social organizations and services sig-
nicantly shifted daily activities outside the
domestic sphere. The result has been wide-
spread experience, even in youth, with non-
family activities, including education, work,
and exposure to mass media (Axinn & Yabiku;
Beutel & Axinn, 2002).
A key prediction from the family mode of
organization framework is that increased expo-
sure to nonfamily social activities among
youth will create greater youth independence
from the parental generation (Thornton &
Fricke, 1987; Thornton et al., 1994). This pre-
diction is crucial to understanding variation in
expressions of marital quality in this setting
because independence in the younger genera-
tion promotes new ideas about the nature of
marital relationships. As the younger generation
grows more independent, they have new oppor-
tunities to draw on their knowledge of social
life in other settings to reorient their views of
marriage. To the extent that young people in
Nepal reorient their views of marriage toward
those in the United States and Western Europe,
Nepalese will become more likely to seek
marital relationships characterized by a strong
emotional bond between husbands and wives
(Caldwell, 1982; Goode, 1970; Thornton &
Lin, 1994). Thus, we expect that those with
greater exposure to premarital nonfamily expe-
riences will cultivate greater expressions of
love, less conict, greater communication about
childbearing, and less domestic violence in their
marital relationships.
Nonfamily Experiences
and Marital Dynamics
Three specic mechanisms operate together to
produce a relationship between increasing expo-
sure to nonfamily experiences and greater inde-
pendence of young people: increased parental
respect for children, childrens changing atti-
tudes toward family formation, and childrens
opportunities to interact with new same-genera-
tion peers. Each of these mechanisms suggests
specic links between premarital nonfamily expe-
riences and dimensions of marital relationships.
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1133
First, as young peoples daily activities are
more frequently organized outside the domestic
sphere, their acceptance of their parents ideas
may change signicantly. Nonfamily experien-
ces are likely to reduce parental authority over
children, stimulating children to become more
accepting of the ideas of others outside their
families. Thornton and his colleagues (1994)
suggested that exposure to schooling substan-
tially modies the authority of parents over their
children. Similarly, as children start to work for
pay, their contribution to household economic
resources may increase substantially. An in-
creased contribution to household resources
may also increase childrens autonomy from
parents, giving children the opportunity to con-
sider alternative sources of ideas about mar-
riage. The autonomy to consider alternative
views of marital relationships may be the rst
step for young people in Nepal toward more
Western marital relationships (Ghimire et al.,
2003).
Second, the new information that children
learn outside the domestic sphere may also have
important consequences for the way they view
marriage and family. This is likely to be particu-
larly true in South Asia, where educational and
media materials themselves often include
examples of family life and individual choice
(Caldwell, 1982; Caldwell, Reddy, & Caldwell,
1988). Caldwell (1982) argued that present-day
schooling and mass media in many settings out-
side the West are crucial factors in changing
cultures and values toward those in the West
(see also Goode, 1970; Inkeles, 1969). In fact,
education is signicantly related to various atti-
tudes about the marriage process, independent
of nonfamily work, travel, and childhood com-
munity context (Barber, in press). Multiple
mechanisms may also link media exposure to
new ideas about marriage. Some scholars sug-
gested that media tend to favor the elite and to
represent their views of social issues (McQuail,
1985). Mass media in Nepal, such as radio, tele-
vision, and movies, overwhelmingly represent
Western world views (Barber & Axinn, 2003),
including positive views of marriage based on
an emotional bond. There is also a long-stand-
ing argument that media encourage a breakdown
of social control (Janowitz, 1981). Increased
awareness of Western views, which are not
compatible with the common values in Nepal-
ese society, may encourage the breakdown of
historical social control mechanisms. As a result,
we expect that both formal education and media
exposure encourage Western ideas such as
romantic love, less traditionally dened gen-
dered family roles, and movement toward
equality or joint decision making, all of which
may lead individuals to report more love and
communication and less disagreement or vio-
lence within their marriages.
Third, premarital nonfamily activities are
likely to promote new opportunities to interact
with similarly aged people. Previously, most
personal interactions in Nepal were limited to
those who lived within walking distance, and in
most cases, social interactions among close
family members, extended family, and other
relatives predominated over interactions with
nonrelatives. As a result, young people had rela-
tively little interaction with others of the same
age who might have different ideas about mar-
riage. With the spread of mass education, more
reliable and regular transportation, employment
opportunities outside the home, marketplaces,
and movie theaters, there has been a signicant
increase in the number and kinds of people with
whom young people can interact. Such interac-
tion is likely to be particularly important in
Nepal because there are relatively few restric-
tions on interactions among same-age peers,
including those of the opposite gender. Evi-
dence from other settings is consistent with the
conclusion that these new interaction patterns
may inuence marriage (Thornton et al., 1994).
Improved access to schooling, marketplaces,
and so on substantially broadens the pool of
potential social contacts available to individu-
als. This contact is likely to stimulate stronger
emotional bonds to similarly aged members of
the opposite gender, greater independence from
parents, and new ideas about the essential ele-
ments of a marital relationship (Ghimire et al.,
2003; Thornton et al., 1984).
Because these mechanisms each work in the
same direction, they lead us to the common
expectation that premarital nonfamily experien-
ces with schooling, work, and mass media will
increase the likelihood that individuals seek out
marriages based on an emotional bond. As
a result, we expect these experiences to increase
the chances that individuals characterize their
marriages as relatively high on expressions of
love, relatively low on expressions of conict,
relatively high on communication about child-
bearing, and relatively low on the incidence of
domestic violence. A key element of gender
1134 Journal of Marriage and Family
stratication in Nepal, however, is that young
women have historically enjoyed much less
access to nonfamily school, work, and recrea-
tion than young men (Beutel & Axinn, 2002).
Although we expect premarital nonfamily ex-
periences to inuence marital dynamics in the
same direction for both men and women,
womens lower opportunity to participate in
these experiences may produce weaker relation-
ships for them. Of course, it may also be the
case that the few women who have had pre-
marital nonfamily experiences respond just as
strongly to those experiences as do men.
Nonfamily experiences may inuence marital
dynamics indirectly (via marital experiences), or
they may inuence marital dynamics directly
(via other mechanisms). As we discuss below,
there are many reasons to expect that early
marital experiences, such as age at marriage,
arrangement of marriage, and parenting within
marriage, will inuence marital dynamics. The
dramatic social changes in rural Nepal include
substantial changes in marital experiences. Previ-
ous research indicates that nonfamily experi-
ences affect these marital experiences (Axinn &
Yabiku, 2001; Ghimire et al., 2003; Thornton &
Lin, 1994; Yabiku, 2002). So, nonfamily experi-
ences may have indirect effects on marital
dynamics through changes in marital experiences.
Marital Experiences and Marital Dynamics
Although there has been relatively little research
on the factors promoting high-quality marital
relationships in settings such as rural Nepal,
research in industrialized settings indicates
important consequences of previous marital ex-
periences for reports of various marital dynamics.
For example, previous research points toward
factors such as age at marriage, duration of mar-
riage, and presence of children as important
inuences on marital quality. In general, indi-
viduals who marry at younger ages and those
who are married for longer periods tend to
report lower levels of marital quality (Booth &
Edwards, 1985; Bumpass, Martin, & Sweet,
1991; Rogers & Amato, 1997; Van Laningham,
Johnson, & Amato, 2001). Therefore, we expect
that younger ages at marriage and longer dura-
tions of marriage will be associated with lesser
expressions of love, greater expressions of con-
ict, and greater incidence of domestic violence.
We have no prediction about the direction of
potential effects of age at marriage and marital
duration on communication about childbearing,
however.
In the United States, the presence of children
in the home and the transition to parenthood
itself are negatively related to marital quality, at
least while the children are young (Belsky,
Lang, & Rovine, 1985). In Nepal, however,
childbearing is considered an essential element
of a marital relationship, and failure to bear chil-
dren is often considered legitimate grounds
for divorce or marriage to a second spouse
(Bennett, 1983; Fricke, 1986; Stone, 1978).
Therefore, the presence of children may actually
improve the marital relationship for couples in
Nepal. As a result, we cannot predict the direc-
tion of the effect of presence of children on our
measures of marital dynamics in this setting.
We do expect, though, that the presence of chil-
dren will increase discussions about childbear-
ing because the presence of children will create
greater need for communication on this topic.
Relatively little is known about the effect of
divorce and remarriage on marital relationships
in Asian settings, and ndings from research on
this topic in the United States are mixed. On
one hand, some suggested that being in a second
or higher marriage is related to lower marital
quality (Booth & Edwards, 1992; Ganong &
Coleman, 1994) and higher risk of divorce
(White, 1990). On the other hand, Johnson and
Booth (1998) showed that reports of low marital
quality in rst marriages do not necessarily
increase the chances of having low marital qual-
ity in second marriages. Some second marriages
may be characterized by higher marital quality
than rst marriages. Thus, although previous
divorce and remarriage may have important
effects on dimensions of marriage, the expected
direction of these effects in not clear.
The extent to which the marriage is arranged
by parents or is a product of independent deci-
sions by the husband and wife is also likely to
inuence subsequent reports of various marital
dynamics. Interestingly, the direction of this
effect is also far from obvious. On one hand,
there is a long-standing belief that marriages
arranged exclusively by parents translate into
reduced interaction and emotional availability
between partners (Blood, 1967). This perspec-
tive fuels the common notion that arranged mar-
riages are less satisfying than love matches to
the individuals involved (Xu & Whyte, 1990).
On the other hand, the marital homogamy, fam-
ily support, and overlapping social connections
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1135
promoted by parentally arranged marriage may
increase marital satisfaction in some settings
under certain circumstances (Applbaum, 1995;
Batabyal, 2001). These potentially countervail-
ing forces prevent us from reaching a clear pre-
diction about the likely effect of arranged
versus choice marriage on expressions of love,
conict, communication about childbearing,
and incidence of domestic violence. This is con-
sistent with other research on the effect of ar-
ranged marriage, which failed to nd strong
consequences of the distinction (e.g., Walsh &
Taylor, 1982).
Social Context
In addition to ones own premarital nonfamily
and early marital experiences, a variety of
factors may inuence both the exposure to non-
family experiences and dimensions of marriage
(Axinn & Yabiku, 2001; Barber, in press;
Ghimire et al., 2003). The rst of these is com-
munity context in childhood. Given our theoreti-
cal reasoning, we believe that it is particularly
important to control for the availability of non-
family organizations and services in and around
the respondents community in childhood. Sec-
ond, parental experiences with education and
nonfamily work during the respondents child-
hoods may affect both their nonfamily experien-
ces and the nature of their marriages. Third,
marital processes in Nepal vary greatly by ethnic
group, with a range that includes bride-price,
dowry, exogamous marriage, endogamous mar-
riage, polygyny, and polyandry (Bennett, 1983;
Bista, 1972; Fricke, 1986; Macfarlane, 1976).
Because of this variability, it may also be that
marital dynamics differ in important ways by
ethnic group. Moreover, ethnicity may inuence
an individuals level of participation in nonfam-
ily activities. Finally, in settings of rapid social
change, previous studies suggest signicant
differences among birth cohorts in exposure to
both nonfamily experiences and marital behav-
ior (Goode, 1970; Thornton et al., 1994). There-
fore, we include a control for the respondents
birth cohort in our models.
METHOD
Setting and Data
The data we use were collected as part of the
Chitwan Valley Family Study in 1996. The
Chitwan Valley in rural Nepal provides an ideal
setting for tests of the theoretical framework
outlined above. The study site is characterized
by the rapid expansion of nonfamily services
and organizations within the lifetimes of its resi-
dents; dramatically increased nonfamily educa-
tion, work, and media exposure; and equally
dramatic changes in family life, including mari-
tal behavior (Axinn & Barber, 2001; Axinn &
Yabiku, 2001; Barber & Axinn, 2003; Ghimire
et al., 2003).
The Chitwan Valley Family Study is based
on a systematic probability sample of 171
neighborhoods in western Chitwan. The Chitwan
study dened a neighborhood as a geographic
cluster of 5 to 15 households. Once a neighbor-
hood was selected, all individuals ages 15 to 59
residing in the sampled neighborhood were
interviewed. If any of these respondents had
a spouse living elsewhere, that spouse was in-
terviewed as well. A total of 5,271 individuals
were interviewed, resulting in a 97% response
rate. This study provides rich retrospective mea-
surement of the occurrence and timing of indi-
vidual life events, including marital events,
collected using a life history calendar, and
linked measures of the characteristics of those
events using a structured questionnaire. The life
history calendar was designed to use local
events to help respondents recall the timing of
personal events and to allow respondents to
report their recall of marital events in a manner
most consistent with local practices (Axinn,
Pearce, & Ghimire, 1999).
Only individuals who were married at the
time of the interview are included in these
analyses, resulting in a nal sample of 3,724
individuals. We further restricted the sample to
individuals who identied with one of the speci-
ed ethnic groups (High-Caste Hindu, Low-
Caste Hindu, Hill Tibeto-Burmese, Terai
Tibeto-Burmese, and Newar) in order to make
comparisons among ethnic groups more precise.
Analyses were run separately for men and
women to allow us to explore gender-based var-
iations in the predictors of marital dynamics.
Measures
The Chitwan Valley Family Study included
substantial ethnographic eldworkunstruc-
tured interviews, cognitive interviews, and
focus groupsaimed at creating measures of
marital relationships highly appropriate to the
1136 Journal of Marriage and Family
local culture. The measures included here reect
those determined through this process to be
most appropriate to this setting.
Marital dynamics. Following from earlier work
that distinguishes among various aspects of
marital relationships (e.g., Amato, Johnson,
Booth, & Rogers, 2003; Norton, 1983), we
employ a series of four separate relationship
dimensions. Our data contained six measures
of relationship dynamics that were subjected to
a principal component factor analysis with var-
imax rotation to determine whether they all
tapped a single construct. The items were cor-
related, but the analysis resulted in two distinct
factors with eigenvalues greater than one and
two items that loaded only marginally on the
rst factor. We determined that the measures
were sufciently different that they were not
appropriately combined into a single indicator
of marital quality. Instead, the results of these
analyses led us to create two scales (represent-
ing the two factors) and to use the remaining
two items independently. We avoided the tau-
tology issue often found in marital quality
research (Fincham & Bradbury, 1987) by using
each concept as a dimension of the relation-
ship rather than predicting one measure of
marital quality with another closely related
measure.
The rst dimension we examined is the
amount of love that the respondent reports feel-
ing toward the spouse. A single question reads
How much do you love your (husband/wife)?
Very much (4), some, a little, or not at all (1)?
This item is similar in scope to the global items
often employed in studies of marital quality
(Norton, 1983).
Next, two items regarding conict were
scaled to create a single measure of the second
dimension of relationship quality. The two
items were, How often do you have disagree-
ments with your (husband/wife)? Frequently,
sometimes, seldom, or never? and How often
does your (husband/wife) criticize you? The
resulting item had a range from 0, no disagree-
ments or criticism, to 6, frequent disagreements
and criticism. Both items loaded (loading .8)
on the rst factor in our factor analysis and were
signicantly correlated (r .51, p .000).
The third marital dynamic refers to communi-
cation, specically issues surrounding child-
bearing, and was made up of two questions:
How often do you and your (husband/wife)
discuss how many children to have? Often,
sometimes, or never? and How often do you
discuss contraceptive methods with your (hus-
band/wife)? These items were signicantly
correlated with each other (r .48, p .000),
and the measure combining them had
a response range from 0, never discuss either, to
4, often discuss both. These two questions were
asked only of individuals 40 years old or youn-
ger who were not sterilized.
The nal measure of the relationship is
whether the respondent had ever been beaten
by the spouse (1 yes, 0 no). Although do-
mestic violence is not always a direct reection
of poor marital quality and, in fact, has many
other predictors in the United States (e.g., John-
son, 1995; Johnson & Ferraro, 2000), not much
is known about this type of violence as a mari-
tal dynamic in a setting such as rural Nepal.
Koenig, Ahmed, Hossain, and Mozumder
(2003) found domestic violence to be (in-
versely) related to education and social context
in rural Bangladesh, but little else is known
about it in the context of non-Western marital
relationships. Therefore, our analyses examine
the extent to which domestic violence is pre-
dicted by the same factors as other marital
dynamics in Nepal.
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for
each of these measures. Note that women report
signicantly higher levels of criticisms and dis-
agreements, lower levels of communication
about childbearing, and more than ve times
higher levels of being beaten by a spouse than
men.
Premarital nonfamily activity. The Chitwan
Valley Family Study collected a complete his-
tory of respondents educational and work expe-
riences using life history calendar methods. Our
measure of the number of years of schooling
before marriage is the cumulative total of the
years respondents spent in school or adult edu-
cation up to 1 year before the respondent was
married. Our measure of nonfamily employ-
ment before marriage also uses information
from the life history calendar. All years that
a respondent was employed outside the home or
family were recorded, allowing us to produce
an indicator of the cumulative number of years
that individuals were employed in nonfamily
work before the year of marriage.
Because Nepalese society was isolated from
the rest of the world before the 1950s,
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1137
exposure to any kind of mass media was nearly
nonexistent in the rst half of the century. In the
study area, the rst movie theater was estab-
lished in late 1969, and the subsequent prolifer-
ation of such halls drew tremendous attention
among the population of Chitwan. We use
exposure to movies as an indicator of exposure
to mass media because these movies are almost
entirely produced outside Nepal, and reect
a variety of themes suggesting new ideas about
marital relationships (Barber & Axinn, 2003;
Ghimire et al., 2003). Our measure of exposure
to movies comes from responses to a series of
questions in the individual interview. Respond-
ents were asked, Have you ever seen a movie
in a movie theater? Respondents who said yes
were asked, How old were you when you
saw a movie for the rst time? We only
include experiences that occurred before mar-
riage in our measure of exposure to movies
(coded 1 if the respondent saw a movie before
marriage and 0 if the respondent did not). Men
reported signicantly more experience with
nonfamily school, work, and movie-going than
women (see Table 1).
Marital experiences. Our measure of age at
which the respondent was rst married, or age
at current marriage if the respondent was mar-
ried more than once, came from the life history
TABLE 1. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF MEASURES USED IN ANALYSES
Men (n 1,794) Women (n 1,929)
Variables M SD Range M SD Range
Love for spouse 3.01 .70 14 2.99 .70 14
Criticism or disagreements 1.39 1.22 06 1.55 1.31 06
Discussion of childbearing 1.59 1.17 04 1.20 1.05 04
Beaten by spouse .03 .18 01 .17 .38 01
Premarital nonfamily activities
Years of schooling
a
6.27 5.39 022 3.13 4.50 020
Years of nonfamily work 2.79 3.86 027 .73 1.81 016
Did R see movie? .67 .47 01 .46 .50 01
Marital experiences
Age at marriage
a
20.58 4.20 745 16.26 3.24 436
Duration of marriage 16.10 11.63 055 16.67 11.75 056
Presence of children
b
.91 .29 01 .90 .29 01
Previously married
a,b
.22 .41 01 .07 .26 01
Arranged marriage
a,b
.49 .50 01 .76 .43 01
Childhood community context
Community context scale
a
3.40 2.08 06 3.56 2.03 06
Parental family background
Parents education
a,b
.18 .38 01 .27 .44 01
Parents nonfamily work
b
.47 .50 01 .46 .50 01
Ethnicity
High-Caste Hindu
b
.46 .50 01 .47 .50 01
Low-Caste Hindu
b
.12 .32 01 .12 .32 01
Hill Tibeto-Burmese
b
.17 .38 01 .18 .39 01
Terai Tibeto-Burmese
b
.19 .39 01 .18 .38 01
Newar
b
.06 .24 01 .06 .24 01
Age cohorts
Age 1524
a,b
.10 .30 01 .25 .43 01
Age 2534
b
.32 .47 01 .30 .46 01
Age 3544
b
.25 .43 01 .24 .43 01
Age 4559
a,b
.26 .44 01 .20 .40 01
a
Means for men and women are different at p , .05.
b
Dummy variables are coded so that 1 signies the presence of the
characteristic and 0, the absence.
1138 Journal of Marriage and Family
calendar. The mean age at marriage for the
individuals in these analyses was 18.27 years
(Table 1). Marital duration comes from the
life history calendar as well. Our measure re-
ects the number of years from the time the
respondents current marriage began until the
respondent was interviewed in 1996. Whether
the respondent had been previously married
was also ascertained using the calendar. We
used a dichotomous measure coded 1 if the
respondent was married before and 0 other-
wise. Our measure of presence of children also
comes from the calendar; responses were
coded 1 if the married couple had children and
0 otherwise.
To assess marriage arrangement, respondents
were asked, People marry in many different
ways. Sometimes our parents or relatives decide
whom we should marry, and sometimes we
decide ourselves. In your case, who selected
your (most recent) spouse? Your parents/rela-
tives, yourself, or both? If they answered both,
the interviewer asked a follow-up question:
Although both of you may have decided, one
of you may have had a little more inuence
than the other. Who had more inuence in
choosing your (most recent) spouse? You or
your parents and relatives? To provide an ef-
cient summary of the responses to these ques-
tions, we treat marriages in which the spouse
was selected by parents or relatives as arranged
and code them 1. We treat all other marriages as
involving some input from the respondent and
code those 0.
Women report signicantly lower ages at
marriage, a signicantly lower likelihood of
being previously married, and a signicantly
higher likelihood of having an arranged mar-
riage than men (see Table 1). Although it may
seem counterintuitive that women have a higher
likelihood of an arranged marriage than men, in
the Nepalese context, this nding is not surpris-
ing. Our measure of arrangement is at the indi-
vidual rather than couple level. All questions
were asked independent of both husbands and
wives, including questions about marriage
arrangement. In Nepal and similar settings, it is
not unusual for one partner to have more of
a say in the choice of spouse than the other part-
ner (see also Blood, 1967). The results pre-
sented in Table 1 demonstrate that as arranged
marriage begins to give way to free choice in
Nepal, men are somewhat more likely to enjoy
that freedom than women.
Childhood community context. We construct
a scale using responses to interview questions
about the availability of nonfamily organiza-
tions and services within a 1-hour walk of the
respondents home before the respondent was
age 12. This scale adds 1 for each of the follow-
ing organizations and services located within
a 1-hour walk: school, health post, bus stop,
employer, marketplace, and police station.
Thus, the resulting scale ranges from 0 to 6.
This type of scale has been used successfully in
previous research to capture the effect of child-
hood community context on adult family deci-
sion making and attitudes (Axinn & Yabiku,
2001; Barber, in press).
Parental family background. Because parental
experiences may affect both childrens nonfam-
ily experiences and the nature of their mar-
riages, we control for two key dimensions of
parental background in our models: parents
education and parents nonfamily work for pay
during the respondents childhood. The measure
of education is a combination of responses to
questions about whether the respondents father
and mother had ever attended school, and was
coded 1 if either parent had any schooling, and
0 otherwise. The measure of parental nonfamily
work comes from the responses to the ques-
tions, Did your mother (father) ever work for
pay outside your home before you were 12
years old? Again, we coded our measure 1 if
at least one parent had engaged in nonfamily
work. Both education and nonfamily work were
rare in the parental generation in Nepal. These
measures indicate any exposure at all to educa-
tion and work in the parental generation.
Ethnicity. Although ethnicity in Nepal is com-
plex, scholars often use ve major groups for
analytical purposes, and we employ dichoto-
mous measures of those categories: High-Caste
Hindu (reference category), Low-Caste Hindu,
Hill Tibeto-Burmese, Terai Tibeto-Burmese,
and Newar.
Marriage practices and behaviors vary both
within and across the ethnic groups, although
some ethnic patterns emerge. High-Caste Hindus
view marriage as a sacred and unbreakable
union between the husband and wife, marry
early, usually through marriages arranged by
parents, and have very little intercaste marriage,
divorce, and remarriage. Low-Caste Hindus fall
at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1139
therefore do not strictly adhere to these practices.
Tibeto-Burman groups, both Hill and Terai, do
not have such religious prescriptions and social
pressure, and thus usually marry at older ages.
Some Burman groups historically prefer cross-
cousin (mothers brothers son/daughter and fa-
thers sisters son/daughter) marriage, and youth
are given full opportunity to choose their own
marriage partners. Intercaste marriage, divorce,
and remarriage are not viewed as negatively as
they are among High-Caste Hindus. Finally,
Newars have distinct marriage patterns emerg-
ing from the assimilation of Hinduism and Bud-
dhism. Newars marry at older ages, but their
marriages are usually arranged. Marriages
between relatives, love marriages, and intercaste
marriages are relatively uncommon. Divorce,
however, does not draw much criticism among
Newars.
Birth cohort. Respondents cohort is coded into
four categories; ages 1524, 2534, 3544, and
4559 at the time of interview. The oldest
cohort (4559) is the reference group in our
analyses.
RESULTS
We estimate multivariate models of each of the
marital dynamics in three regression equations,
each run separately for men and women. The
rst model includes measures of premarital non-
family experience, childhood community con-
text, parental characteristics, ethnicity, and age
cohort. The second model replaces the nonfam-
ily experience items with marital experiences
but was otherwise identical to the rst. The nal
model includes both nonfamily activities and
marital experiences along with the other mea-
sures. Results from all analyses can be found in
Tables 2 through 5 and are discussed in detail
below. For the sake of parsimony, we present
both unstandardized (B) and standardized (b)
regression coefcients in the tables, but discuss
only the unstandardized results here.
Love of Spouse
Table 2 presents the results of the models pre-
dicting the degree to which respondents report
loving their spouses. The results demonstrate
a signicant positive effect of nonfamily educa-
tional experiences on reports of love toward the
spouse for both men and women. This nding
is consistent with the prediction from our the-
ory: We expected that those with more exposure
to education in schools would be more likely to
seek out marital relationships characterized by
a strong emotional bond.
Parental education had a statistically signi-
cant positive effect on reports of love among
women, but not among men. Thus, education is
an important predictor of reporting love among
both men and women, but these effects are con-
ned to the same generation for men but span
educational experiences of two generations for
women. We also expected but did not nd that
experience with nonfamily work and movies
had similar consequences. The consequences of
premarital nonfamily experiences appear to be
limited to education.
We nd relatively little evidence of important
consequences of marital experiences for reports
of love. The only exception is a statistically sig-
nicant negative effect of having been previously
married on reports of love among women. Our
indicator of arranged marriage stands out because
of the absence of any effect on reports of love,
but the direction of the coefcients is in line with
those shown by Blood (1967): Arranged mar-
riages generally produce more positive emotions,
including love and satisfaction, for men than for
women. The lack of signicance may seem sur-
prising. As we argue above, there is reason to
suspect that the selection process of arranged
marriage may also provide the foundation for
a strong emotional bond. The alternative to
arranged marriage is often thought of as a love
marriage in South Asia, but we nd little evi-
dence that these marriages are in fact character-
ized by higher levels of reported love.
We nd some statistically signicant effects
of ethnicity on reports of love, at least among
women. Interestingly, however, even though
ethnicity is an important dimension of stratica-
tion in Nepal, we nd no evidence of signicant
or systematic difference in the effect of educa-
tion on reports of love across ethnic groups
(analyses not shown).
Criticism and Disagreements
Our analysis of criticism and disagreements re-
veals less insight into the relationship between
premarital nonfamily experience and this dimen-
sion of the marriage (see Table 3). Nonfamily
schooling and movies have no signicant effects
on reports of criticisms and disagreements, and
1140 Journal of Marriage and Family
the effect of nonfamily work is actually to in-
crease criticisms and disagreements. This result
is contrary to the direction of our prediction. We
expected nonfamily experiences to reduce re-
ports of criticism and disagreements because we
expected those experiences to increase exposure
to the idea of marriage based on an emotional
bond. It may be that we nd no evidence of this
relationship because the emotional basis of mari-
tal relationships does not necessarily reduce
criticisms and disagreements, or it may be that
the nonfamily experiences themselves are not
as strongly tied to views of marriage as we
expected.
Only the presence of children had a signi-
cant effect on reports of criticism and disagree-
ments, increasing those reports among men.
Other dimensions of marital experiences did
not signicantly inuence criticism and dis-
agreements. We also found no evidence of sig-
nicant interactions between gender and either
premarital nonfamily or marital experiences
(analyses not shown). And, although ethnicity
does inuence reports of criticism and disagree-
ments such that Low-Caste Hindu women and
Terai Tibeto-Burmese men reported higher
levels than their High-Caste Hindu counter-
parts, we found no evidence of signicant inter-
actions between ethnic group and measures of
premarital nonfamily experiences (analyses not
shown).
Discussions of Childbearing
The results of the analyses for discussions about
childbearing and contraception are displayed in
Table 4. These questions were only asked of in-
dividuals who were younger than 40 and not
sterilized; therefore, the sample size and refer-
ence group for the age cohort variables were
changed in these models. We used the 35- to
40-year-olds as the comparison group. Educa-
tion is positively related to reports of commu-
nication about childbearing. These effects are
strong among both men and women, and the
gender difference is not signicant (analyses
not shown). Nonfamily work has a statistically
insignicant effect on discussions of childbear-
ing, but seeing movies is related to more discus-
sions of childbearing, at least among women
when marital experiences are controlled
(women, model 3, Table 4). These results are
consistent with our prediction that premarital
nonfamily experience would be related to
increased communication about childbearing,
though once again, these effects are basically
limited to the inuence of education. Exposure
to new ideas through education in schools does
seem to increase the level of discussion about
childbearing issues within marriage.
As our theoretical framework predicted, the
presence of children is a signicant positive pre-
dictor of discussion about childbearing issues.
This result is not surprising. With children pres-
ent, married couples undoubtedly experience
more urgency for discussions of how many chil-
dren to have and whether to use contraceptive
methods to achieve those goals. The links
between other dimensions of marital experience
and discussion of childbearing issues are not as
clear. Both age at marriage and duration of mar-
riage have a negative effect on the frequency of
such discussion, but only among women. Other
dimensions of marital experience had no signi-
cant effects. As above, although these dimen-
sions of marital experience inuence some
dimensions of marital quality in industrialized
settings, it is not clear that similar effects should
be expected on discussions of childbearing in
rural Nepal.
Finally, just as in the previous analyses, we
nd that ethnicity does inuence reports of
discussions about childbearing issues, but we
found no evidence of interactions between eth-
nic group and measures of premarital nonfamily
experiences (analyses not shown).
Beaten by Spouse
The results for the models predicting whether
an individual reported having been beaten by
his or her spouse are displayed in Table 5.
As we predicted, there is a signicant nega-
tive effect of nonfamily educational experi-
ences on reports of being beaten by the spouse
for both men and women. The effect of educa-
tional experiences is approximately twice as
large among men as among women, although
this difference is not statistically signicant
(analyses not shown). Just as with reports of
love, the effects of education are conned to
the same generation among men but span two
generations for women. We nd mixed evi-
dence of important consequences of marital
experiences for reports of domestic violence,
however. Having been previously married in-
creases the odds of domestic violence for
women, and having an arranged marriage
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1141
increases the odds of domestic violence for
men, whereas other marital experiences have no
signicant effects. The inuence of specic di-
mensions of marital experience appear to
depend greatly, then, on the specic dynamic of
marriage being examined.
Finally, we again nd some effects of eth-
nicity on reports of domestic violence, but no
evidence of signicant or systematic differences
in the effect of nonfamily experiences on re-
ports of domestic violence across ethnic groups
(analyses not shown). Thus, in general, ethnic-
ity does shape marital behavior in this highly
stratied setting, but the effects of nonfamily
experiences, particularly education, on marital
dynamics appear to be independent of ethnicity.
Overall, across the different dimensions of
marriage we investigate, we nd little evidence
that marital experiences are an indirect link
between nonfamily experience and marital
dynamics. Thus, even though we have theoreti-
cal reasons to expect that marital experiences
may function as mechanisms linking nonfamily
experiences to marital dynamics, the empirical
evidence presented here is consistent with the
conclusion that changes in marital experiences
constitute their own independent inuences on
marital dynamics.
Further, although we found consistent evi-
dence for the inuence of education on marital
dynamics across models, the effects of nonfam-
ily work and media were much more tentative.
Finding fewer effects than predicted may be
attributed, at least in part, to two methodologi-
cal factors. The rst concerns nonfamily work.
The rise in nonfamily work in Nepal is in its
early stages and lags behind the increase in edu-
cation (Axinn & Yabiku, 2001). Therefore,
TABLE 2A. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING EXPRESSIONS
OF LOVE FOR SPOUSE (MEN; N 1,655)
1 2 2
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .01*** .00 .15 .02** .01 .16
Years of nonfamily work .00 .01 .02 .01 .01 .03
R see a movie? .05 .05 .03 .04 .05 .02
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .00 .01 .02 .00 .01 .01
Duration of marriage .00 .01 .04 .00 .00 .06
Presence of children .05 .07 .02 .04 .07 .02
Previously married .01 .06 .00 .02 .06 .01
Arranged marriage .02 .04 .02 .03 .04 .02
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .01 .01 .01 .02 .01 .05 .01 .01 .02
Family background
Parents education .01 .05 .01 .03 .05 .02 .01 .05 .01
Parents nonfamily work .02 .04 .02 .01 .04 .01 .02 .04 .02
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .03 .06 .01 .08 .06 .04 .02 .06 .01
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .05 .05 .03 .03 .05 .02 .06 .05 .03
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .06 .05 .03 .02 .05 .01 .06 .05 .03
Newar .10 .08 .04 .11 .08 .04 .11 .08 .04
Cohort
Age 1524 .04 .07 .02 .13 .13 .04 .13 .13 .06
Age 2534 .05 .06 .04 .16 .10 .06 .13 .10 .09
Age 3544 .12** .05 .08 .18** .07 .11 .17** .07 .11
F-value 3.62yyy 1.96y 2.76yyy
Adj. R
2
.02 .01 .02
1142 Journal of Marriage and Family
nonfamily work is still not as widespread, creat-
ing lower overall levels and less variability in
our measure of work than of education, particu-
larly for women. The second factor concerns
our measure of media exposure. Because we
constrained our analyses to include experiences
that occurred prior to marriage to control for
timing, we were limited to a single measure
regarding whether the respondent had ever seen
a movie prior to marriage. It is likely that fre-
quency, content, and duration of exposure
would be better predictors of the marital dynam-
ics that we examined. In addition, multiple
types of media (television, radio, magazines,
newspapers) may be important, and we exam-
ined only movies.
CONCLUSION
The aim of this article is to document factors
associated with variations in marital dynamics
in a cultural context that is in the midst of
TABLE 2B. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING EXPRESSIONS
OF LOVE FOR SPOUSE (WOMEN; N 1,886)
1 2 3
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .01* .01 .07 .01* .01 .07
Years of nonfamily work .03 .01 .01 .00 .01 .00
R see a movie? .04 .04 .03 .05 .04 .04
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .00 .01 .01 .00 .01 .02
Duration of marriage .00 .00 .03 .00 .01 .06
Presence of children .08 .06 .03 .08 .06 .03
Previously married .23yy .08 .08 .22yy .08 .08
Arranged marriage .01 .04 .01 .01 .04 .01
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .01 .01 .02 .01 .01 .04 .01 .01 .02
Family background
Parents education .10** .04 .06 .12*** .04 .08 .10** .04 .06
Parents nonfamily work .02 .03 .02 .02 .03 .02 .03 .03 .02
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .14y .06 .06 .15yy .05 .07 .12y .06 .05
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .06 .05 .03 .06 .05 .03 .04 .05 .02
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .16yyy .05 .09 .18yyy .05 .10 .14yy .05 .08
Newar .07 .07 .02 .07 .07 .03 .08 .07 .03
Cohort
Age 1524 .08 .06 .05 .01 .14 .01 .03 .14 .02
Age 2534 .05 .05 .03 .10 .10 .06 .10 .10 .06
Age 3544 .02 .05 .02 .04 .07 .02 .05 .07 .03
F-value 5.20yyy 5.14yyy 4.73yyy
Adj. R
2
.03 .03 .03
Note: B unstandardized regression coefcient; SE B standard error of B; and e
B
standardized regression coefcient.
Movie, presence of children, previously married, arranged marriage, parents education and nonfamily work, ethnicity, and
age categories are all coded 1 when the characteristic is present and 0 when it is not present. Rs education, nonfamily work,
age at marriage, and duration of marriage are all reported in years. Childhood context ranges from 0 (no nonfamily services
within a 1-hour walk) to 6 (all six nonfamily services were present within a 1-hour walk). Reference category for ethnicity is
High-Caste Hindu, and for age is 4554.
*p ,.05. **p ,.01. ***p ,.001 (one-tailed tests).
yp ,.05. yyp ,.01. yyyp ,.001 (two-tailed tests).
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1143
dramatic social, economic, and institutional
change. We examined marital relationships in
rural Nepal because this setting provides
a unique opportunity to study the relation-
ships between various dimensions of social,
economic, and institutional change and the
emergence of marital relationships based on
a close emotional bond between husbands and
wives rather than on parental arrangement.
The theoretical framework we construct em-
phasizes the importance of changes in the local
community context to the social organization of
families and the lives of individuals. We nd
empirical evidence consistent with the predic-
tions from this framework, although the conse-
quences of nonfamily activities appear to be
largely limited to the domain of education. We
nd that those with higher levels of education
report higher levels of love for their spouses,
higher levels of communication about child-
bearing, and a lower likelihood of being beaten
by a spouse. Having seen movies before mar-
riage also increases discussion about childbear-
ing issues among women. This result provides
some evidence that a broad set of nonfamily
activities may be inuencing the dynamics of
marital relationships in rural Nepal, but the
evidence we present overwhelmingly points
toward education in schools as a key determi-
nant of marital quality in this setting. In fact,
education in the parental generation also
appears as an important inuence on these vari-
ous dimensions of marriage for women, even
after the respondents own education is included
in our models. The importance of education ts
with earlier work. Inkeles (1969), for example,
found education to be a stronger force than non-
family work in changing mens attitudes and
TABLE 3A. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING FREQUENCY
OF CRITICISMS AND DISAGREEMENTS (MEN; N 1,655)
1 2 3
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .01 .01 .05 .01 .01 .03
Years of nonfamily work .01 .01 .03 .01 .01 .04
R see a movie? .02 .08 .01 .00 .08 .00
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .02 .01 .05 .01 .01 .03
Duration of marriage .00 .01 .04 .01 .01 .04
Presence of children .31yy .12 .08 .32yy .12 .08
Previously married .13 .10 .04 .12 .10 .04
Arranged marriage .07 .07 .03 .07 .07 .03
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .01 .02 .02 .01 .02 .02 .01 .02 .02
Family background
Parents education .01 .08 .00 .00 .08 .00 .03 .08 .01
Parents nonfamily work .08 .06 .04 .10 .06 .04 .08 .06 .03
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .06 .10 .02 .11 .10 .03 .06 .10 .02
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .06 .09 .02 .10 .09 .03 .09 .09 .03
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .16 .09 .05 .22yy .08 .07 .17 .09 .05
Newar .15 .13 .03 .15 .13 .03 .14 .13 .03
Cohort
Age 1524 .24* .13 .06 .07 .23 .02 .08 .23 .02
Age 2534 .12 .10 .05 .00 .17 .00 .03 .17 .01
Age 3544 .14 .09 .05 .09 .12 .03 .08 .12 .03
F-value 1.57 1.81y 1.72y
Adj. R
2
.004 .01 .01
1144 Journal of Marriage and Family
behaviors, although both were signicant pre-
dictors of modernizing men (see also Barber,
in press).
The spread of mass education has only begun
recently in Nepal, and many different mecha-
nisms may link experiences in nonfamily
schooling to family behaviors (Axinn & Barber,
2001). Ideational mechanisms that teach stu-
dents new ideas about the nature of marital rela-
tionships may be particularly important in the
link between schooling and the reported quality
of a marital relationship. Because schools in
Nepal base their curricula on schools in India
and England, it is quite likely that these educa-
tional materials transmit ideas about marriage
based on an emotional bond rather than long-
term exchange relationships between families
(Caldwell, 1982; Fricke, 1986; Thornton, 2001;
Thornton & Lin, 1994). Ideas about marital re-
lationships learned in school may have lasting
effects on the evaluation of various marital
dynamics.
TABLE 3B. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING FREQUENCY
OF CRITICISMS AND DISAGREEMENTS (WOMEN; N 1,886)
1 2 2
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .01 .01 .02 .00 .01 .01
Years of nonfamily work .06 .02 .08 .06 .02 .09
R see a movie? .05 .08 .02 .04 .08 .02
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .01 .01 .04 .02 .01 .05
Duration of marriage .01 .01 .12 .01 .01 .11
Presence of children .12 .11 .03 .12 .11 .03
Previously married .14 .15 .03 .15 .05 .03
Arranged marriage .10 .07 .03 .10 .07 .03
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .02 .02 .03 .01 .02 .02 .02 .02 .03
Family background
Parents education .10 .08 .03 .12 .07 .04 .08 .08 .03
Parents nonfamily work .13 .06 .05 .16 .06 .06 .13 .06 .05
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .28yy .10 .07 .31yy .10 .08 .25y .10 .06
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .06 .10 .02 .06 .09 .02 .08 .09 .02
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .10 .09 .03 .10 .09 .03 .05 .09 .02
Newar .19 .13 .04 .18 .13 .03 .19 .13 .03
Cohort
Age 1524 .39*** .12 .13 .73** .26 .24 .69** .26 .23
Age 2534 .32*** .10 .11 .56** .20 .20 .55** .19 .19
Age 3544 .30*** .10 .10 .42*** .13 .14 .40*** .13 .13
F-value 4.33yyy 3.59yyy 3.72yyy
Adj. R
2
.02 .02 .03
Note: B unstandardized regression coefcient; SE B standard error of B; and e
B
standardized regression coefcient.
Movie, presence of children, previously married, arranged marriage, parents education and nonfamily work, ethnicity, and
age categories are all coded 1 when the characteristic is present and 0 when it is not present. Rs education, nonfamily work,
age at marriage, and duration of marriage are all reported in years. Childhood context ranges from 0 (no nonfamily services
within a 1-hour walk) to 6 (all six nonfamily services were present within a 1-hour walk). Reference category for ethnicity is
High-Caste Hindu, and for age is 4554.
*p ,.05. **p ,.01. ***p ,.001 (one-tailed tests).
yp ,.05. yyp ,.01. yyyp ,.001 (two-tailed tests).
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1145
As is often the case, the spread of mass edu-
cation in Nepal produced higher school enroll-
ments for men than for women. Although social
changes in rural Nepal have dramatically
reduced the gender gap in school enrollments,
substantial gender differences in rates of drop-
ping out of school remain (Beutel & Axinn,
2002). It may be that mens higher probability
of staying in school either exposes them to more
sources of ideas or enhances their devotion to
learning these ideas. The difference in length of
schooling may be partly responsible for the
observed gender differences in the relationship
between educational attainment and reports of
marital quality. These important gender differ-
ences in the effect of educational experience
also serve to underscore the importance of study-
ing mens and womens viewpoints regarding
marriage separately.
The theory guiding our investigation also
acknowledges the multidimensional nature of
marriages and the need to formulate hypotheses
in relation to specic dimensions of relationship
quality rather than a single underlying con-
struct. In this rural Asian setting, we found that
the relationship between previous marital expe-
riences and marital dynamics depends greatly
on the specic dimension of the marriage being
examined. The presence of children increases
the level of criticism and disagreements, but
also increases the level of communication about
childbearing issues. Among women, having
been previously married signicantly increases
the likelihood of being beaten by a spouse.
Being in marriages of longer durations some-
what reduces discussion of childbearing issues
and levels of criticisms and disagreements
among women. Having a marriage that was
TABLE 4A. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING DISCUSSIONS
OF CHILDBEARING ISSUES (MEN; N 743)
1 2 3
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .04*** .01 .20 .05*** .01 .23
Years of nonfamily work .02 .01 .06 .01 .02 .03
R see a movie? .13 .14 .04 .11 .14 .03
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .00 .02 .01 .00 .02 .00
Duration of marriage .00 .02 .00 .01 .02 .03
Presence of children .50*** .12 .17 .49*** .12 .17
Previously married .01 .14 .00 .10 .14 .03
Arranged marriage .11 .09 .05 .10 .10 .04
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .01 .03 .02 .05* .03 .07 .01 .03 .02
Family background
Parents education .10 .10 .04 .04 .10 .01 .10 .10 .03
Parents nonfamily work .21** .09 .09 .13 .09 .06 .19* .09 .08
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .10 .14 .03 .31y .14 .09 .11 .14 .03
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .03 .13 .01 .04 .13 .01 .10 .13 .02
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .14 .13 .05 .17 .12 .06 .12 .13 .04
Newar .01 .19 .00 .10 .19 .02 .03 .18 .01
Cohort
Age 15 24 .03 .14 .01 .29 .25 .10 .25 .25 .09
Age 25 34 .21* .12 .09 .37* .16 .16 .30* .16 .13
F-value 4.64yyy 3.27yyy 4.50yyy
Adj. R
2
.06 .04 .07
1146 Journal of Marriage and Family
arranged exclusively by parents signicantly
increases the odds of experiencing domestic
violence among men, but has no consistent or
statistically signicant effect on any of the other
marital dynamics we explored.
These results revealed interesting variation
across marital dynamics within this rapidly
changing setting and point toward potential
complexities that will fuel future research. In
South Asian settings, the number and gender of
children may be just as important for marital
quality as the presence of children per se (Mace
& Mace, 1960; Stone, 1978). In settings in
which alternatives to arranged marriage are rela-
tively new, there may be important interactions
between the arrangement and the duration of
a marriage or courtship that shape marital qual-
ity (Blood, 1967). Similarly, in settings in
which the incidence of divorce and remarriage
is relatively low, such as among High-Caste
Hindus, being previously married may also
interact with other dimensions of the marriage
TABLE 4B. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING DISCUSSIONS
OF CHILDBEARING ISSUES (WOMEN; N 914)
1 2 3
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .03** .01 .13 .03*** .01 .16
Years of nonfamily work .02 .02 .04 .00 .02 .00
R see a movie? .10 .09 .05 .16* .09 .07
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .03 .02 .07 .04y .02 .10
Duration of marriage .03y .01 .18 .01 .01 .09
Presence of children .66*** .10 .25 .65*** .10 .24
Previously married .16 .19 .03 .10 .19 .01
Arranged marriage .10 .08 .03 .06 .08 .03
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .04 .02 .06 .10*** .02 .11 .04* .02 .07
Family background
Parents education .07 .08 .03 .15* .08 .07 .10 .08 .04
Parents nonfamily work .06 .07 .03 .10 .07 .03 .10 .07 .04
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .01 .12 .00 .15 .11 .05 .01 .11 .00
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .02 .10 .01 .02 .10 .01 .05 .10 .02
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .36yyy .11 .14 .19y .10 .07 .35yyy .10 .13
Newar .21 .15 .05 .20 .15 .04 .21 .15 .05
Cohort
Age 1524 .10 .12 .03 .11 .23 .05 .03 .23 .02
Age 2534 .17 .11 .08 .02 .15 .01 .04 .15 .02
F-value 4.40yyy 6.38yyy 6.42yyy
Adj. R
2
.04 .08 .09
Note: B unstandardized regression coefcient; SE B standard error of B; and e
B
standardized regression coefcient.
Movie, presence of children, previously married, arranged marriage, parents education and nonfamily work, ethnicity, and
age categories are all coded 1 when the characteristic is present and 0 when it is not present. Rs education, nonfamily work,
age at marriage, and duration of marriage are all reported in years. Childhood context ranges from 0 (no nonfamily services
within a 1-hour walk) to 6 (all six nonfamily services were present within a 1-hour walk). Questions about childbearing and
contraception were only asked of individuals younger than 40 and not sterilized, hence the reduced sample size for these
models. Reference category for ethnicity is High-Caste Hindu, and for age is 3540.
*p ,.05. **p ,.01. ***p ,.001 (one-tailed tests).
yp ,.05. yyp ,.01. yyyp ,.001 (two-tailed tests).
Social Change and Marital Dynamics 1147
to shape marital quality. In addition, individuals
in such settings may redene the important aspects
of marriage or acknowledge other aspects as
important initially to make their experiences t
with their expectations. Although investigation
of these possibilities is beyond the scope of our
present analysis, each offers promising avenues
for future research.
These complexities also offer specic exam-
ples of the ways in which broadening the study
of marital dynamics to settings outside the
West can yield important insights into the
extent to which processes determining marital
quality are context specic. In Nepal, not only
is the day-to-day meaning of marital relation-
ships quite a bit different from that in the
United States, but this meaning is also chang-
ing rapidly. The mode of organization frame-
work is a useful tool for studying the links
between social change and marital relationships
in such settings, but specic hypotheses regard-
ing individual dimensions of marriage will
need to be derived from setting-specic de-
tails about the forces shaping marriage. These
models provide a rst step in that process.
Although the use of multiple setting-specic
measures requires a great deal of effort for re-
searchers, the payoffs are likely to enrich our
overall understanding of the social processes
and changes in those processes most likely to
reshape the quality of marital relationships in
the long term.
NOTE
The authors would like to thank the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (Grant NICHD
2R01-HD32912) for their nancial support of this research.
TABLE 5A. SUMMARY OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSIS FOR VARIABLES PREDICTING LIKELIHOOD
OF BEING BEATEN BY SPOUSE (MEN; N 1,655)
1 2 3
Variables B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
B SE B e
B
Premarital nonfamily activity
Years of school .13** .04 .88 .13** .04 .88
Years of nonfamily work .01 .04 1.01 .03 .04 .98
R see a movie? .45 .38 .64 .53 .38 .59
Marital experiences
Age at marriage .05 .04 1.05 .08 .05 1.08
Duration of marriage .01 .03 1.01 .00 .03 1.00
Presence of children .59 .50 .56 .61 .51 .55
Previously married .69y .38 1.98 .52 .39 1.69
Arranged marriage .69y .32 1.98 .67y .32 1.95
Childhood community context
Childhood context scale .10 .09 1.11 .01 .09 1.01 .10 .09 1.10
Family background
Parents education .01 .45 .99 .33 .44 .72 .03 .46 .97
Parents nonfamily work .31 .30 1.36 .37 .30 1.45 .35 .31 1.42
Ethnicity
Low-Caste Hindu .57 .40 1.76 .91y .40 2.47 .58 .42 1.79
Hill Tibeto-Burmese .18 .47 .84 .05 .47 1.06 .11 .47 .90
Terai Tibeto-Burmese .27 .44 .76 .35 .42 1.42 .19 .45 .83
Newar .70 .58 2.01 .59 .58 1.80 .70 .58 2.02
Cohort
Age 1524 .53 .62 1.69 .47 1.00 1.60 .95 1.02 2.59
Age 2534 .38 .47 1.46 .22 .73 1.24 .69 .73 2.00
Age 3544 .01 .43 .99 .04 .53 .96 .19 .53 1.21

2
24.95y 21.93 35.48yy
Df 13 15 18
1148 Journal of Marriage and Family
We also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers at the JMF,
as well as Jennifer Barber, Arland Thornton, Lisa Pearce,
and Scott Yabiku for their input and suggestions regarding
this body of research. Responsibility for errors or omissions
remains solely with the authors.
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