Citation

Al-Krenawi A, Graham JR, Al Gharaibeh F. Community Ment. Health J. 2011; 47(5): 594-602.

Affiliation

School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Box 4200, St. John's, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada, aalkrenawi@mun.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-011-9405-x

PMID

21573772

Abstract

This study surveyed a 2009 convenience sampling of 199 women, 93 of whom were first (or senior) wives in polygamous marriages and 106 were wives in monogamous marriages. We deployed the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD), ENRICH marital satisfaction questionnaire, SCL-90 mental health symptoms checklist, Rosenberg self-esteem (SE) scale, and Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin life satisfaction scale, a basic sociodemographic scale, including attitudes towards polygamy. Women from polygamous families experienced more problems in family functioning, marital relations, and reported low self-esteem, less satisfaction with life, and more somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and their general severity index was higher (GSI). More women in polygamous marriages agreed with the practice of polygamy, as compared to their monogamous counterparts. The conclusion considers implications for mental health practice, policy, and further research.

Language: en