Marital adjustment in families of workers of a factory in Kerala and its social correlates

Background: A good family environment is essential for the efficient working of an employee in a factory.Marital happiness of the workers can be a subject matter of welfare department of an establishment as long as it does not infringe on the privacy of employees.Objectives: To determine the level of happiness of wives of employees in a manufacturing establishment.Design: A cross-sectional assessment of adjustment between the woman and her husband.Setting: A focal group meeting organized by a voluntary agency to educate the women on marital happiness.Subjects: The wives of 34 employees of a manufacturing unit who attended the focal group meeting.Methods: A translated version of Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) was administered to assess the marital adjustment among the couples.Results: About one-third of the women were very much happy about their marital lives.Almost half of them were happy enough to continue with the way of life.About one-fifth were not happy with their married life.On the whole, major aspects of life were in general agreement except the finer aspects such as recreational matters and leisure activities.Lack of marital agreement due to physical violence was present in a minority of families, which was traced mostly to alcohol abuse.Conclusions: More leisure time interests and activities, shared household tasks and matters of recreation could improve family environment from within, and career guidance for the wives from external agencies.