Archives of Sexual Behavior, 11ol.5, No. 1, 1976
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison Nils Uddenberg,
M.D. 1
A two-generation study of pregnant nulliparous women (daughters} and their mothers is presented. The women in both generations were interviewed. Daughters from homes characterized by marital discord between the parents (as judged from the report of the mother} were compared to daughters from harmonious homes. Daughters from discordant homes reported a poor emotional relationship with their father. In contrast, the emotional relationship with the mother was little influenced by parental discord. Daughters from discordant homes reported less stable and gratifying relationships with male partners and more sex partners than daughters from harmonious homes. A t the time of their first pregnancy, daughters from discordant homes received little support from the father of the child. They more often described unsatisfactory housing and financial conditions. Poor parental interrelations may impair the daughter's ability to establish gratifying relationships with men. One explanation is the daughter's identification with her parents. During the identification process, the daughter of discordant parents assimilates her parents' negative patterns of relating to each other. These unsuccessful patterns may later undermine her ability to establish positive relationships with men. KEY WORDS: marital discord; parental relations; sexual relations; pregnancy; heterosexuality; sex.
INTRODUCTION Severe and prolonged discord between parents may deteriorate the emotional climate of the family. Further, Conflicts between parents may impair relationships between parents and children. Consequently, discord between parents has been observed to be associated with poor mental health and deviant 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Lund, Lasarettet, Lund, Sweden. 69 © 1 9 7 6 P l e n u m Publishing C o r p o r a t i o n , 2 2 7 West 1 7 t h S t r e e t , N e w Y o r k , N . Y . 1 0 0 1 1 . N o part o f this p u b l i c a t i o n m a y be r e p r o d u c e d , stored in a retrieval system, or t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m or b y a n y means, electronic, mechanical, p h o t o c o p y i n g , m i c r o f i l m i n g , recording, or o t h e r w i s e , w i t h o u t w r i t t e n permission of t h e publisher.
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behavior in childhood and adolescence (Jonsson, 1967; West, 1969; Rutter, 1972). In considering the adverse effects of parental discord on the emotional adaptation of the offspring, the parents' importance as models for their children must be considered. The child's identification with his or her parents implies that the child will internalize parental attitudes, feelings, and patterns of behavior. Repeated evidence (Benedek, 1959; Rheingold, 1964; Melges, 1968; Uddenberg, 1974a) suggests that adaptational difficulties in the sphere of reproduction and motherhood may be transmitted from mother to daughter by means of identification. Adequate patterns of adaptation may also be transmitted from one generation to the next. The psychological background of marital discord may vary considerably in different families. Irrespective of the cause of the conflicts, however, a child growing up in a family where the relationship between parents is unsatisfactory may perceive relationships between men and women as problematic. If a daughter identifies with her mother, the daughter of discordant parents should internalize the mother's ambivalence toward her husband, the daughter's father. This ambivalence may generalize to an ambivalence toward all men. The daughter's identification with her unhappily married mother should have two consequences: (1) the daughter should be expected to reject her father, and (2) she should have difficulties in establishing satisfying relationships with men. The second hypothesis receives some support from the literature. Langner and Michael (1963) reported that children of divorced parents were themselves more likely to divorce. Frommer and O'Shea (1973a,b) observed an overrepresentation of "problems of marriage and family building" among women who had grown up living with parents having "serious quarrels." Young (1954) described an "unbalanced" parental home, that is, a home disproportionately dominated by either the father or the mother, as typical for unwed mothers. This observation has been confirmed (Franklin, 1972). However, to the author's knowledge there has been no systematic study o f the relationships with male partners of women from discordant homes. The present report is based on a sample of primigravidae (daughters) and their mothers. Women pregnant for the first time were selected from t h o s e visiting an antenatal clinic and followed through pregnancy and the postpartum period by means of semistructured interviews. Further, the mothers of the pregnant women were interviewed. Thus the relationships with men of the women in both generations were directly studied. Two questions are considered herein: 1. How were the daughter's relationships with her father and her mother, respectively, affected by marital discord between the parents? 2. In which way did daughters from discordant homes differ from daughters from harmonious homes in their relationships with men?
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
71
Other results, especially pertaining to the reproductive adaptation of the women in both generations, have been published elsewhere (Uddenberg and H~kanson, 1972; Uddenberg, 1974a,b, Uddenberg and Nilsson, 1975). METHODS
A detailed description of the sample and the methods of investigation is given in another publication (Uddenberg, 1974a). Only a short presentation will be made here. The primigravidae were selected from women visiting the antenatal clinic at Lund in southern Sweden. Two selection criteria were used: (1) in order to standardize the sample only women less than 20 weeks pregnant were included; (2) for practical reasons only women whose mothers lived at a distance of less than 150 km from Lund were selected. The sample rday be regarded as a random selection of primigravidae filling these two criteria. One-hundred and twelve pregnant women (the daughters) were selected and invited to participate in the study. Ten women (8.9%) refused to participate and one woman had a spontaneous abortion before she could be investigated. Consequently, 101 pregnant women were interviewed. All the mothers of these women were asked to take part in the study. However, ten mothers (9.9%) were unwilling to cooperate and two mothers had to be excluded for other reasons. Thus 89 mothers could be studied. Considering the small number of refusals, the cooperation of the women in both generations can be regarded as good. The representativeness of the sample has been considered elsewhere (Uddenberg, 1974a). In Sweden women from all social groups visit the same type of antenatal clinic, and the proportion of women visiting a private gynecologist is relatively small. In a previous study (Nilsson, 1970), it was demonstrated that a sample of women from the antenatal clinic at Lund can be regarded as representative of childbearing women in southern Sweden. A sample selected from an antenatal clinic excludes those pregnant women who sought legal abortion. Legal abortion is fairly common in Sweden. During the period when the information was collected (December 1970 to December 1972), roughly every tenth pregnancy in the district of Lund was terminated by legal abortion. This implies that women who strongly and consciously rejected their pregnancy were underrepresented in the sample. The women in both generations were investigated by means of semistructured interviews (a detailed description of the interview technique is given in Uddenberg, 1974a). The women in the younger generation were interviewed on two occasions: (1) toward the end of the first half of the pregnancy (interview I) and (2) 4 months post partum (interview II). The mothers of the pregnant women were interviewed during their daughter's pregnancy generally about 1 month after interview I. All interviews were carried out by the author.
72
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Interview I and interview II were especially designed to survey the daughter's experience of pregnancy and motherhood (see Uddenberg, 1974a). The following topics, of interest in the present context, were discussed during interview I: relationships with the parents, social situation at the time of pregnancy, attitude toward pregnancy, relationship with the father of the child, and sexual history. Interview II pertained to information regarding the postpartum relationship with the father of the child. The women in the older generation were asked about their marital relations. Thus they described their experience of their husband and how much support they had received from him. They were also asked if they had considered a divorce, and to what extent there had been serious conflicts between themselves and their husband (father of the daughter). Taking into account both their answers to these questions and their spontaneous report of their marital relationships, the women in the older generation were divided into three groups: (1) severe marital discord, (2) moderate marital discord, and (3) no marital discord. Severe marital discord was noted when the woman's report indicated that the marital interrelations had been severely inadequate, involving long periods of unsatisfactory contact and support. Moderate marital discord was recorded in the case of similar but less accentuated disturbance of the interrelations. It should be noted that the report of occasional quarrels was not considered to indicate marital discord. The statistical significance of the observations was tested by means of the X2 method (two-tailed test). The statistical significance of pervading trends in the distribution was tested by calculation of the X2 on the regression (X/~, Maxwell, 1961).
RESULTS
Background Data Severe marital discord was noted for 18 of 89 mothers investigated (20.2%), whereas moderate discord was recorded in 26 cases (29.2%). In the severely discordant group, 14 mothers had considered a divorce. The correspon& ing number for the moderately discordant group was three. Only five mothers had actually divorced; these five belonged to the severely discordant group. In two cases, the parents had separated when the daughter was in early childhood (3 and 4 years old, respectively). One divorce had taken place when the daughter was 10 years old, while the remaining two divorces had occurred when the daughter was adolescent. Thus in the large majority of cases the daughter had grown up living with her discordant parents.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
73
Table I. Comparisons Between the Incidence of Marital Discord Between the Parents and the Daughter's Relationship with Her Parents Marital discordance between parents Severe
Moderate
None
Contact with mother in childhood (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
13 5
23 3
41 4
Severe/moderate + none x 2 = 2.56, I df, n.s.
Contact with mother in adolescence (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
10 8
16 10
34 11
×~ = 2.91, 2 df, n.s.
Contact with father in childhood (daughter's report)
Very good + moderatetygood Poor
10 7
16 10
39 5
x 2 = 9.17, 2 dt', p ~ 0.01 ×~ = 7.83, I df, p < 0.01
Contact with father in adolescence (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
6 11
I0 16
27 17
X2 = 5.12, 2 dr, n.s. ×~ = 4.45, 1 df, p < 0 . 0 5
Sympathy (daughter's report)
Mother Father + same
12 5
15 11
14 30
X2= 9.06, 2 df, p < 0.025 x~ = 8.77. I df, p < 0.005
"'Mother's girl" in childhood (mother's report)
Yes No
11 7
13 13
12 33
×~= 7.72, 2 dr, p < 0.025 ×~ : 7.45, 1 df, p < 0.01
"Mother's girl" in adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
I1 7
12 14
14 31
x ~: 5.08, 2 df, n.s. ×~ = 5.08,1 df, p < 0.025
Conflicts with mother in ' adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
6 12
7 14
12 33
x 2= 0.44, 2 df, n.s.
Conflicts with father in adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
7 11
9 17
1 44
Severe/moderate + none x2 = 4.22, 1 df, p < 0.05
The frequency of marital discord was totally unrelated to socioeconomic status, and no overrepresentation of marital conflicts was observed among parents having a low educational level. The age and parity of the women in the older generation were unrelated to the incidence of marital discord. Daughter's Relationship with Her Parents
The daughter's description of the marital harmony of the parents was strongly related to the interviewer's rating of the marital happiness in the older generation. Thus the more unsatisfactory the interviewer judged the mother's marital relations to be, the more often her daughter reported moderate or severe disharmony between her parents (X/~ = 28.44, 1 df, p < 0.001). The daughter's report regarding early contact with her mother .was unrelated to the incidence of marital discord in the home (Table I). In contrast, t h e daughter's relationship with her father was associated with the incidence of
Uddenberg
74
marital discord between the parents. The more discordant the parents had been, the more often the daughter reported poor paternal contact in childhood and adolescence (Table I). The women in the older generation were asked about the incidence of severe conflicts between the daughter and her parents. Discord between parents was associated with an overrepresentation of conflicts between father and daughter but not with an overrepresentation of conflicts between mother and daughter (Table I). Thus discord between the parents brought about a deterioration of the daughter's emotional relationship with her father but was not associated with the quality of her relationship with her mother. A possible interpretation is that, in the case of a poor relationship between the parents, the daughter tended to side with her mother. This was supported by some observations. The more discordant the parents had been, the more often the daughter reported that she felt more sympathy for her mother than for her father (Table I). Further, the more disharmonious the marital relationship of the mother, the more often she tended to describe her daughter as "mother's girl" as contrasted to "father's girl" or "same."
The Daughter's Social Situation at Conception and Her Attitude Toward the Pregnancy Daughters from harmonious and daughters from disharmonious homes did not differ with respect to their age at the time of first pregnancy. Further, they had the same educational level. However, daughters from severely discordant homes more often reported unsatisfactory housing conditions (X2 = 6.90, 1 df, p < 0.01) and poor financial circumstances (28% as compared to 15%, n.s.) at the time of conception. The more discordant the parents, the more often the daughter described her pregnancy as inconvenient (X~ = 7.54, 1 df, p < 0.01). Congruently, 17% of the daughters from severely 'discordant homes described their pregnancy as strongly undesirable compared to 6% of the daughters having less discordant parents.
The Daughter's Relationships with Men and Specifically with Father of the Child Daughters from discordant homes reported a higher number of male partners than daughters from nondiscordant homes. They somewhat more often had had relationships lasting for more than 6 months with more than four males (Table II). At the time of first conception, daughters from severely discordant homes more often were unmarried and without plans of marriage and more
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
75
Table II. Comparisons Between the Incidence of Marital Discord Between the Parents and the Daughter's Relationship with the Father of Her Child Marital discordance between parents Severe
Moderate
None
Unmarried without plans of marriage at the time of conception
Yes No
8 10
2 24
4 41
Severe/moderate + none X~= 11.45, l df, p < 0.001
Unmarried at the time of delivery
Yes No
9 9
3 23
8 37
×2= 10.18, 2 df, p < 0.01 Severe/moderate + none x 2= 7.93, 1 df, p 4
11 7
20 6
43 2
Sexual adaptation before the pregnancy
Good Moderate + poor
8 10
17 9
33 12
Orgasmic consistency
Low Moderate+ high
7 11
9 17
12 33
Severe/moderate + none ×2= 5.97, 1 df, p < 0.025 ×2= 4.73, 2 df, n.s. ×~ = 4.40, 1 df, p < 0.05 x 2 = 1.06, 2 df, n.s.
To recapitulate, women from discordant homes appeared to have less stable and satisfactory relationships with men than women from harmonious homes. At the time of their first pregnancy, the first group of women received little support from the father of their child.
Sexual History of the Daughter The unstable relationships with men of the daughters from disharmonious homes were reflected in their sexual history. The more discordant the parents, the more sexual partners the daugher reported (Table III). Sexual satisfaction was studied by asking the daughter about her relationship with her present partner. Daughters from discordant homes more often reported generally poor sexual satisfaction. However, orgasmic consistency (proportion of coitions at which the woman attained orgasm) was unrelated to the occurrence and severity of discord between parents (Table III).
DISCUSSION These findings indicate more unstable relationships with men for daughters with discordant parents than for daughters whose parents were happily married. Daughters with disharmonious parents described their male partner and their relationship with him in more negative terms.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
77
The daughter's report of poor sexual satisfaction was related to a poor marital relationship between her parents. In contrast, the orgasmic consistency of the daughter was unrelated to the marital harmony of her parents. Previously, it has been observed that orgasmic consistency is only weakly related to the woman's experience of her male partner (Raboch and Bart~ik, 1968; Fisher, 1973; Uddenberg, 1974b). In contrast, the experience of sexual relations as emotionally satisfying has been shown to be dependent on a positive and gratifying relationship with the partner (Uddenberg, 1974b). Thus a comparison of the sexual history of women from discordant and women from harmonious homes indicated that the former group of women had difficulties in relating to men. When pregnant for the first time, daughters from discordant homes were living in a more precarious social situation than daughters from nondiscordant homes. Consequently, the former group of daughters expressed a more negative attitude toward their pregnancy. The parallelism between the generations is striking. When the mother's marital relationship was harmonious, her daughter's relationships with men generally appeared to be stable and gratifying. In contrast, unhappily married mothers more often had daughters who, like their mothers, reported great difficulties in relating successfully to men. The different ability in the two groups to relate successfully to male partner s can hardly be explained by referring to different norms of sexual morals in different socioeconomic groups. Discordant parents were not less educated than harmonious ones. Neither were the daughters from the discordant homes less well educated than the daughters from harmonious homes. Some suggestions regarding possible mechanisms behind the transmission of behavior toward men between the generations were obtained. When the parents were unhappily married, their daughter more often reported poor contact with her father. However, no association was found between marital disharmony in the older generation and poor contact between daughter and mother. Daughters of disharmonious parents tended to side with their mother. They more often reported that they felt more sympathy for their mother than their father. While this does not imply that the daughters' relationship with their mother had been uniformly positive, daughters from the discordant homes generally seemed to reject their father at the same time as they maintained a closer relationship with their mother. These observations regarding the parental relationships of women from discordant homes indicate that the unstable and unsuccessful relationships with male partners of these women may be interpreted as a recapitulation of early established patterns. Unsatisfactory relationships with the prime male figure, i.e., the father, repeat themselves in unsatisfactory relationships with other men later in life. Numerous observations suggest that the child imitates and identifies with the same-sexed parent (Hartup, 1962; Kohlberg, 1967; Bandura and Waiters,
78
Uddenberg
1969; Kagan, 1971). Thus the daughter would be expected to identify-with her mother and to assimilate the mother's attitudes, feelings, and patterns of adaptation. In the case o f conflicts between the parents, this assimilation would involve the daughter's internalization of her mother's ambivalence toward the father and toward men in general. Further, the findings may be interpreted in terms of complementation (see Money and Ehrhardt, 1972). By means of complementation, the feelings and behavior o f cross-sexed models are internalized and experienced as characteristic for the opposite sex. Thus a daughter in a disharmonious family will assimilate her father's ambivalence toward his wife. This ambivalence will be perceived as typical for men's attitudes toward women. By internalizing her father's and mother's unsuccessful patterns of relating to each other, the daughter m a y acquire similar adaptational difficulties as her parents.
REFERENCES Bandura, A., and Walters, R. H. (1969). Social Learning, and Personality Development, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, London. Benedek, T. F. (1959). Sexual functions in women and their disturbance. In Arieti, S. (ed.), American Handbook of Psychiatry, Basic Books, New York. Fisher, S. (1973). The Female Orgasm, Basic Books, New York. Franklin, A. W. (1972). Illegitimacy. In Howells, J. C. (ed.),Modern Perspectives in Psychoobstetrics, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. Frommer, E. A., and O'Shea, G. (1973a). Antenatal identification of women liable to have problems in managing their infants. Brit. J. Psychiat. 123: 149-156. Frommer, E. A., and O'Shea, G. (1973b). The importance of childhood experience in relation to problems of marriage and family-building. Brit. J. Psychiat. 123: 157-160. Hartup, W. W. (1962). Some correlates of parental imitation in young children. Child Develop. 33: 85-97. Jonsson, G. (1967). Delinquent boys, their parents and grandparents. Acta Psychiat. Scand. Suppl. 195. Kagan, J. (1971). Personality Development, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. Kohlberg, L. (1967). A cognitive developmental analysis of children's sex-role concepts and attitudes. In Maccoby, E. E. (ed.), The Development of Sex Differences, Tavistock, London. Langner, T. S., and Michael, S. T. (1963). Life Stress and Mental Health, Free Press, Collier-Macmillan, London. Maxwell, A. E. (1961). Analysing Qualitative Data, Methuen, London. Melges, F. T. (1968). Postpartum psychiatric syndromes. Psychosom. Med. 30: 95-108. Money, J., and Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972). Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Nilsson, A. (1970). Para-natal emotional adjustment. A prospective investigation of 165 women. Part I. A general account of background variables, attitudes towards childbirth, and an appreciation of psychiatric morbidity. Acta Psychiat. Scand. SuppL 220. Raboch, J., and Bart~ik, V. (1968). Das Sexualleben frigider Frauen: Sonderdruck aus. Psychiat. Neurol. Med. Psychol. 10: 368-373. Rheingold, J. C. (1964). The Fear of Being a Woman, Grune and Stratton, New York. Rutter, M. (1972). Maternal Deprivation, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. Uddenberg, N. (1974a). Reproductive adaptation in mother and daughter: A study of personality development and adaptation to motherhood. Acta Psychiat. Scand. Suppl. 254.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
79
Uddenberg, N. (1974b). Psychological aspects of sexual inadequacy in women. J. Psychosom. Res. 18: 33-47. Uddenberg, N., and H~ikanson, M. (1972). Aniseikonic body perception in pregnancy. J. Psychosom. Res. 16: 179-184. Uddenberg, N., and Nilsson, L. (1975). The longitudinal course of paranatal emotional disturbance. A cta Psychiat. Scand. 52: 160-169. West~ D. J. (1969). Present Conduct and Future Delinquency, International Universities Press, New York. Young, L. (1954). Out of Wedlock, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison Nils Uddenberg,
M.D. 1
A two-generation study of pregnant nulliparous women (daughters} and their mothers is presented. The women in both generations were interviewed. Daughters from homes characterized by marital discord between the parents (as judged from the report of the mother} were compared to daughters from harmonious homes. Daughters from discordant homes reported a poor emotional relationship with their father. In contrast, the emotional relationship with the mother was little influenced by parental discord. Daughters from discordant homes reported less stable and gratifying relationships with male partners and more sex partners than daughters from harmonious homes. A t the time of their first pregnancy, daughters from discordant homes received little support from the father of the child. They more often described unsatisfactory housing and financial conditions. Poor parental interrelations may impair the daughter's ability to establish gratifying relationships with men. One explanation is the daughter's identification with her parents. During the identification process, the daughter of discordant parents assimilates her parents' negative patterns of relating to each other. These unsuccessful patterns may later undermine her ability to establish positive relationships with men. KEY WORDS: marital discord; parental relations; sexual relations; pregnancy; heterosexuality; sex.
INTRODUCTION Severe and prolonged discord between parents may deteriorate the emotional climate of the family. Further, Conflicts between parents may impair relationships between parents and children. Consequently, discord between parents has been observed to be associated with poor mental health and deviant 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Lund, Lasarettet, Lund, Sweden. 69 © 1 9 7 6 P l e n u m Publishing C o r p o r a t i o n , 2 2 7 West 1 7 t h S t r e e t , N e w Y o r k , N . Y . 1 0 0 1 1 . N o part o f this p u b l i c a t i o n m a y be r e p r o d u c e d , stored in a retrieval system, or t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m or b y a n y means, electronic, mechanical, p h o t o c o p y i n g , m i c r o f i l m i n g , recording, or o t h e r w i s e , w i t h o u t w r i t t e n permission of t h e publisher.
70
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behavior in childhood and adolescence (Jonsson, 1967; West, 1969; Rutter, 1972). In considering the adverse effects of parental discord on the emotional adaptation of the offspring, the parents' importance as models for their children must be considered. The child's identification with his or her parents implies that the child will internalize parental attitudes, feelings, and patterns of behavior. Repeated evidence (Benedek, 1959; Rheingold, 1964; Melges, 1968; Uddenberg, 1974a) suggests that adaptational difficulties in the sphere of reproduction and motherhood may be transmitted from mother to daughter by means of identification. Adequate patterns of adaptation may also be transmitted from one generation to the next. The psychological background of marital discord may vary considerably in different families. Irrespective of the cause of the conflicts, however, a child growing up in a family where the relationship between parents is unsatisfactory may perceive relationships between men and women as problematic. If a daughter identifies with her mother, the daughter of discordant parents should internalize the mother's ambivalence toward her husband, the daughter's father. This ambivalence may generalize to an ambivalence toward all men. The daughter's identification with her unhappily married mother should have two consequences: (1) the daughter should be expected to reject her father, and (2) she should have difficulties in establishing satisfying relationships with men. The second hypothesis receives some support from the literature. Langner and Michael (1963) reported that children of divorced parents were themselves more likely to divorce. Frommer and O'Shea (1973a,b) observed an overrepresentation of "problems of marriage and family building" among women who had grown up living with parents having "serious quarrels." Young (1954) described an "unbalanced" parental home, that is, a home disproportionately dominated by either the father or the mother, as typical for unwed mothers. This observation has been confirmed (Franklin, 1972). However, to the author's knowledge there has been no systematic study o f the relationships with male partners of women from discordant homes. The present report is based on a sample of primigravidae (daughters) and their mothers. Women pregnant for the first time were selected from t h o s e visiting an antenatal clinic and followed through pregnancy and the postpartum period by means of semistructured interviews. Further, the mothers of the pregnant women were interviewed. Thus the relationships with men of the women in both generations were directly studied. Two questions are considered herein: 1. How were the daughter's relationships with her father and her mother, respectively, affected by marital discord between the parents? 2. In which way did daughters from discordant homes differ from daughters from harmonious homes in their relationships with men?
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
71
Other results, especially pertaining to the reproductive adaptation of the women in both generations, have been published elsewhere (Uddenberg and H~kanson, 1972; Uddenberg, 1974a,b, Uddenberg and Nilsson, 1975). METHODS
A detailed description of the sample and the methods of investigation is given in another publication (Uddenberg, 1974a). Only a short presentation will be made here. The primigravidae were selected from women visiting the antenatal clinic at Lund in southern Sweden. Two selection criteria were used: (1) in order to standardize the sample only women less than 20 weeks pregnant were included; (2) for practical reasons only women whose mothers lived at a distance of less than 150 km from Lund were selected. The sample rday be regarded as a random selection of primigravidae filling these two criteria. One-hundred and twelve pregnant women (the daughters) were selected and invited to participate in the study. Ten women (8.9%) refused to participate and one woman had a spontaneous abortion before she could be investigated. Consequently, 101 pregnant women were interviewed. All the mothers of these women were asked to take part in the study. However, ten mothers (9.9%) were unwilling to cooperate and two mothers had to be excluded for other reasons. Thus 89 mothers could be studied. Considering the small number of refusals, the cooperation of the women in both generations can be regarded as good. The representativeness of the sample has been considered elsewhere (Uddenberg, 1974a). In Sweden women from all social groups visit the same type of antenatal clinic, and the proportion of women visiting a private gynecologist is relatively small. In a previous study (Nilsson, 1970), it was demonstrated that a sample of women from the antenatal clinic at Lund can be regarded as representative of childbearing women in southern Sweden. A sample selected from an antenatal clinic excludes those pregnant women who sought legal abortion. Legal abortion is fairly common in Sweden. During the period when the information was collected (December 1970 to December 1972), roughly every tenth pregnancy in the district of Lund was terminated by legal abortion. This implies that women who strongly and consciously rejected their pregnancy were underrepresented in the sample. The women in both generations were investigated by means of semistructured interviews (a detailed description of the interview technique is given in Uddenberg, 1974a). The women in the younger generation were interviewed on two occasions: (1) toward the end of the first half of the pregnancy (interview I) and (2) 4 months post partum (interview II). The mothers of the pregnant women were interviewed during their daughter's pregnancy generally about 1 month after interview I. All interviews were carried out by the author.
72
Uddenberg
Interview I and interview II were especially designed to survey the daughter's experience of pregnancy and motherhood (see Uddenberg, 1974a). The following topics, of interest in the present context, were discussed during interview I: relationships with the parents, social situation at the time of pregnancy, attitude toward pregnancy, relationship with the father of the child, and sexual history. Interview II pertained to information regarding the postpartum relationship with the father of the child. The women in the older generation were asked about their marital relations. Thus they described their experience of their husband and how much support they had received from him. They were also asked if they had considered a divorce, and to what extent there had been serious conflicts between themselves and their husband (father of the daughter). Taking into account both their answers to these questions and their spontaneous report of their marital relationships, the women in the older generation were divided into three groups: (1) severe marital discord, (2) moderate marital discord, and (3) no marital discord. Severe marital discord was noted when the woman's report indicated that the marital interrelations had been severely inadequate, involving long periods of unsatisfactory contact and support. Moderate marital discord was recorded in the case of similar but less accentuated disturbance of the interrelations. It should be noted that the report of occasional quarrels was not considered to indicate marital discord. The statistical significance of the observations was tested by means of the X2 method (two-tailed test). The statistical significance of pervading trends in the distribution was tested by calculation of the X2 on the regression (X/~, Maxwell, 1961).
RESULTS
Background Data Severe marital discord was noted for 18 of 89 mothers investigated (20.2%), whereas moderate discord was recorded in 26 cases (29.2%). In the severely discordant group, 14 mothers had considered a divorce. The correspon& ing number for the moderately discordant group was three. Only five mothers had actually divorced; these five belonged to the severely discordant group. In two cases, the parents had separated when the daughter was in early childhood (3 and 4 years old, respectively). One divorce had taken place when the daughter was 10 years old, while the remaining two divorces had occurred when the daughter was adolescent. Thus in the large majority of cases the daughter had grown up living with her discordant parents.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
73
Table I. Comparisons Between the Incidence of Marital Discord Between the Parents and the Daughter's Relationship with Her Parents Marital discordance between parents Severe
Moderate
None
Contact with mother in childhood (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
13 5
23 3
41 4
Severe/moderate + none x 2 = 2.56, I df, n.s.
Contact with mother in adolescence (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
10 8
16 10
34 11
×~ = 2.91, 2 df, n.s.
Contact with father in childhood (daughter's report)
Very good + moderatetygood Poor
10 7
16 10
39 5
x 2 = 9.17, 2 dt', p ~ 0.01 ×~ = 7.83, I df, p < 0.01
Contact with father in adolescence (daughter's report)
Very good + moderately good Poor
6 11
I0 16
27 17
X2 = 5.12, 2 dr, n.s. ×~ = 4.45, 1 df, p < 0 . 0 5
Sympathy (daughter's report)
Mother Father + same
12 5
15 11
14 30
X2= 9.06, 2 df, p < 0.025 x~ = 8.77. I df, p < 0.005
"'Mother's girl" in childhood (mother's report)
Yes No
11 7
13 13
12 33
×~= 7.72, 2 dr, p < 0.025 ×~ : 7.45, 1 df, p < 0.01
"Mother's girl" in adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
I1 7
12 14
14 31
x ~: 5.08, 2 df, n.s. ×~ = 5.08,1 df, p < 0.025
Conflicts with mother in ' adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
6 12
7 14
12 33
x 2= 0.44, 2 df, n.s.
Conflicts with father in adolescence (mother's report)
Yes No
7 11
9 17
1 44
Severe/moderate + none x2 = 4.22, 1 df, p < 0.05
The frequency of marital discord was totally unrelated to socioeconomic status, and no overrepresentation of marital conflicts was observed among parents having a low educational level. The age and parity of the women in the older generation were unrelated to the incidence of marital discord. Daughter's Relationship with Her Parents
The daughter's description of the marital harmony of the parents was strongly related to the interviewer's rating of the marital happiness in the older generation. Thus the more unsatisfactory the interviewer judged the mother's marital relations to be, the more often her daughter reported moderate or severe disharmony between her parents (X/~ = 28.44, 1 df, p < 0.001). The daughter's report regarding early contact with her mother .was unrelated to the incidence of marital discord in the home (Table I). In contrast, t h e daughter's relationship with her father was associated with the incidence of
Uddenberg
74
marital discord between the parents. The more discordant the parents had been, the more often the daughter reported poor paternal contact in childhood and adolescence (Table I). The women in the older generation were asked about the incidence of severe conflicts between the daughter and her parents. Discord between parents was associated with an overrepresentation of conflicts between father and daughter but not with an overrepresentation of conflicts between mother and daughter (Table I). Thus discord between the parents brought about a deterioration of the daughter's emotional relationship with her father but was not associated with the quality of her relationship with her mother. A possible interpretation is that, in the case of a poor relationship between the parents, the daughter tended to side with her mother. This was supported by some observations. The more discordant the parents had been, the more often the daughter reported that she felt more sympathy for her mother than for her father (Table I). Further, the more disharmonious the marital relationship of the mother, the more often she tended to describe her daughter as "mother's girl" as contrasted to "father's girl" or "same."
The Daughter's Social Situation at Conception and Her Attitude Toward the Pregnancy Daughters from harmonious and daughters from disharmonious homes did not differ with respect to their age at the time of first pregnancy. Further, they had the same educational level. However, daughters from severely discordant homes more often reported unsatisfactory housing conditions (X2 = 6.90, 1 df, p < 0.01) and poor financial circumstances (28% as compared to 15%, n.s.) at the time of conception. The more discordant the parents, the more often the daughter described her pregnancy as inconvenient (X~ = 7.54, 1 df, p < 0.01). Congruently, 17% of the daughters from severely 'discordant homes described their pregnancy as strongly undesirable compared to 6% of the daughters having less discordant parents.
The Daughter's Relationships with Men and Specifically with Father of the Child Daughters from discordant homes reported a higher number of male partners than daughters from nondiscordant homes. They somewhat more often had had relationships lasting for more than 6 months with more than four males (Table II). At the time of first conception, daughters from severely discordant homes more often were unmarried and without plans of marriage and more
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
75
Table II. Comparisons Between the Incidence of Marital Discord Between the Parents and the Daughter's Relationship with the Father of Her Child Marital discordance between parents Severe
Moderate
None
Unmarried without plans of marriage at the time of conception
Yes No
8 10
2 24
4 41
Severe/moderate + none X~= 11.45, l df, p < 0.001
Unmarried at the time of delivery
Yes No
9 9
3 23
8 37
×2= 10.18, 2 df, p < 0.01 Severe/moderate + none x 2= 7.93, 1 df, p 4
11 7
20 6
43 2
Sexual adaptation before the pregnancy
Good Moderate + poor
8 10
17 9
33 12
Orgasmic consistency
Low Moderate+ high
7 11
9 17
12 33
Severe/moderate + none ×2= 5.97, 1 df, p < 0.025 ×2= 4.73, 2 df, n.s. ×~ = 4.40, 1 df, p < 0.05 x 2 = 1.06, 2 df, n.s.
To recapitulate, women from discordant homes appeared to have less stable and satisfactory relationships with men than women from harmonious homes. At the time of their first pregnancy, the first group of women received little support from the father of their child.
Sexual History of the Daughter The unstable relationships with men of the daughters from disharmonious homes were reflected in their sexual history. The more discordant the parents, the more sexual partners the daugher reported (Table III). Sexual satisfaction was studied by asking the daughter about her relationship with her present partner. Daughters from discordant homes more often reported generally poor sexual satisfaction. However, orgasmic consistency (proportion of coitions at which the woman attained orgasm) was unrelated to the occurrence and severity of discord between parents (Table III).
DISCUSSION These findings indicate more unstable relationships with men for daughters with discordant parents than for daughters whose parents were happily married. Daughters with disharmonious parents described their male partner and their relationship with him in more negative terms.
Mother-Father and Daughter-Male Relationships: A Comparison
77
The daughter's report of poor sexual satisfaction was related to a poor marital relationship between her parents. In contrast, the orgasmic consistency of the daughter was unrelated to the marital harmony of her parents. Previously, it has been observed that orgasmic consistency is only weakly related to the woman's experience of her male partner (Raboch and Bart~ik, 1968; Fisher, 1973; Uddenberg, 1974b). In contrast, the experience of sexual relations as emotionally satisfying has been shown to be dependent on a positive and gratifying relationship with the partner (Uddenberg, 1974b). Thus a comparison of the sexual history of women from discordant and women from harmonious homes indicated that the former group of women had difficulties in relating to men. When pregnant for the first time, daughters from discordant homes were living in a more precarious social situation than daughters from nondiscordant homes. Consequently, the former group of daughters expressed a more negative attitude toward their pregnancy. The parallelism between the generations is striking. When the mother's marital relationship was harmonious, her daughter's relationships with men generally appeared to be stable and gratifying. In contrast, unhappily married mothers more often had daughters who, like their mothers, reported great difficulties in relating successfully to men. The different ability in the two groups to relate successfully to male partner s can hardly be explained by referring to different norms of sexual morals in different socioeconomic groups. Discordant parents were not less educated than harmonious ones. Neither were the daughters from the discordant homes less well educated than the daughters from harmonious homes. Some suggestions regarding possible mechanisms behind the transmission of behavior toward men between the generations were obtained. When the parents were unhappily married, their daughter more often reported poor contact with her father. However, no association was found between marital disharmony in the older generation and poor contact between daughter and mother. Daughters of disharmonious parents tended to side with their mother. They more often reported that they felt more sympathy for their mother than their father. While this does not imply that the daughters' relationship with their mother had been uniformly positive, daughters from the discordant homes generally seemed to reject their father at the same time as they maintained a closer relationship with their mother. These observations regarding the parental relationships of women from discordant homes indicate that the unstable and unsuccessful relationships with male partners of these women may be interpreted as a recapitulation of early established patterns. Unsatisfactory relationships with the prime male figure, i.e., the father, repeat themselves in unsatisfactory relationships with other men later in life. Numerous observations suggest that the child imitates and identifies with the same-sexed parent (Hartup, 1962; Kohlberg, 1967; Bandura and Waiters,
78
Uddenberg
1969; Kagan, 1971). Thus the daughter would be expected to identify-with her mother and to assimilate the mother's attitudes, feelings, and patterns of adaptation. In the case o f conflicts between the parents, this assimilation would involve the daughter's internalization of her mother's ambivalence toward the father and toward men in general. Further, the findings may be interpreted in terms of complementation (see Money and Ehrhardt, 1972). By means of complementation, the feelings and behavior o f cross-sexed models are internalized and experienced as characteristic for the opposite sex. Thus a daughter in a disharmonious family will assimilate her father's ambivalence toward his wife. This ambivalence will be perceived as typical for men's attitudes toward women. By internalizing her father's and mother's unsuccessful patterns of relating to each other, the daughter m a y acquire similar adaptational difficulties as her parents.
REFERENCES Bandura, A., and Walters, R. H. (1969). Social Learning, and Personality Development, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, London. Benedek, T. F. (1959). Sexual functions in women and their disturbance. In Arieti, S. (ed.), American Handbook of Psychiatry, Basic Books, New York. Fisher, S. (1973). The Female Orgasm, Basic Books, New York. Franklin, A. W. (1972). Illegitimacy. In Howells, J. C. (ed.),Modern Perspectives in Psychoobstetrics, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. Frommer, E. A., and O'Shea, G. (1973a). Antenatal identification of women liable to have problems in managing their infants. Brit. J. Psychiat. 123: 149-156. Frommer, E. A., and O'Shea, G. (1973b). The importance of childhood experience in relation to problems of marriage and family-building. Brit. J. Psychiat. 123: 157-160. Hartup, W. W. (1962). Some correlates of parental imitation in young children. Child Develop. 33: 85-97. Jonsson, G. (1967). Delinquent boys, their parents and grandparents. Acta Psychiat. Scand. Suppl. 195. Kagan, J. (1971). Personality Development, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. Kohlberg, L. (1967). A cognitive developmental analysis of children's sex-role concepts and attitudes. In Maccoby, E. E. (ed.), The Development of Sex Differences, Tavistock, London. Langner, T. S., and Michael, S. T. (1963). Life Stress and Mental Health, Free Press, Collier-Macmillan, London. Maxwell, A. E. (1961). Analysing Qualitative Data, Methuen, London. Melges, F. T. (1968). Postpartum psychiatric syndromes. Psychosom. Med. 30: 95-108. Money, J., and Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972). Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Nilsson, A. (1970). Para-natal emotional adjustment. A prospective investigation of 165 women. Part I. A general account of background variables, attitudes towards childbirth, and an appreciation of psychiatric morbidity. Acta Psychiat. Scand. SuppL 220. Raboch, J., and Bart~ik, V. (1968). Das Sexualleben frigider Frauen: Sonderdruck aus. Psychiat. Neurol. Med. Psychol. 10: 368-373. Rheingold, J. C. (1964). The Fear of Being a Woman, Grune and Stratton, New York. Rutter, M. (1972). Maternal Deprivation, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. Uddenberg, N. (1974a). Reproductive adaptation in mother and daughter: A study of personality development and adaptation to motherhood. Acta Psychiat. Scand. Suppl. 254.
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Uddenberg, N. (1974b). Psychological aspects of sexual inadequacy in women. J. Psychosom. Res. 18: 33-47. Uddenberg, N., and H~ikanson, M. (1972). Aniseikonic body perception in pregnancy. J. Psychosom. Res. 16: 179-184. Uddenberg, N., and Nilsson, L. (1975). The longitudinal course of paranatal emotional disturbance. A cta Psychiat. Scand. 52: 160-169. West~ D. J. (1969). Present Conduct and Future Delinquency, International Universities Press, New York. Young, L. (1954). Out of Wedlock, McGraw-Hill, New York.
