Marriage Criteria of Couples Who Refer to Tabriz Asadabadi Hospital’s Pre marriage Counselling Center

Abstract

Marriage is the first most important stage in the family life cycle in which the choice of spouse is made. Considering the importance of marriage for the individual and society in the present study, we determined the criteria for marriage in couples who referred for premarital counseling at Asadabadi Hospital in Tabriz. Methods: After approval of the research council of the social medicine group and obtaining the ethics code from the regional committee of research ethics (human subject studies), the researcher referred to the premarital counseling center of Asadabadi Hospital in Tabriz to collect data. Then collected data by Preference criteria of spouse selection inventory questionnaire from 212 couples who were about to get married and were willing to participate in the study. After classification, the data were entered into SPSS software and appropriate statistical analysis and tests were performed on them. In all statistical tests, a statistically significant level of 0.05 was considered. Results: The mean age of the couples was 26.90 ± 7.13 years and the mean age difference between the couples was 4.96±0.65 years and the age difference between the couples was significant (P <0.001). 44 people (10.4%) in this study had a relationship with their spouse before marriage, which was significantly more prevalent in rural areas than urban areas (P = 0.005). Friedman test showed that the most important criteria included love and affection, chastity and responsibility, and the least important criteria were income, age and education. Examination of the criteria by Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that in the criteria of job (P = 0.001), income (P <0.001), physical health (P = 0.030), family originality (P = 0.010) and responsibility (P = 0.038) There is a significant difference between men and women.