How Young People Perceive Entry Into Marriage: Acquaintance and Wedding Stories from the Interviews with the Newlyweds

Abstract

Studies devoted to young families focus on the life after the wedding (how the spouse relationships develop; how the spouses go through family transitions, overcome difficulties, learn new roles, etc.). However most studies make comparisons between the cohabiting couples, i.e. unmarried couples living together, and those who enter into marriage; the latter group is considered homogenous. At the same time, certain studies deal with narrow topics: how the marriage proposal is made, what spouses do to prepare for the wedding, what kind of values and representations they pass down in their wedding wishes. The present paper examines entry into marriage as a process where family relationships start. Based on in-depth interviews with young spouses (48 interviews; 24 couples who have been legally married for less than five years) the author identifies stages of entry into marriage and shows how different the newlyweds’ interpretations of each stage are. The paper also proposes several hypotheses about the factors defining the structure of the marriage stories and their specifics.

Acknowledgements. The article is part of the project “How do young families appear and live in modern Russia? Comparison of secular families and priests' families” supported by PSTGU Development Foundation in 2018-2021.