Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

2020

Date of Submission

2021-08-03

Advisor

Dr. Naveen Minai, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Committee

Dr. Faiza Mushtaq, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Abstract

Women experience changes in various aspects of their personal and social lives after marriage. As such, they also experience a shift in their abilities to maintain and form friendships. Women acquire new roles after marriage– of wives, daughters-in-law, and mothers. Women also have to contend with the expectations and responsibilities attached to these roles, particularly those who live in extended families and do not engage in paid work. This thesis explores womanhood, motherhood, and responsibilities attached to women’s roles as wives, daughters-in-law, and mothers. It also explores how marriage, along with these new roles and responsibilities, impacts the organization of women’s space and time as well as their mobility. As a result, the ways in which women maintain, form, and experience friendships change after marriage. They have to navigate through their new roles, expectations, and responsibilities. Changes in time, space, and mobility also affect women’s abilities to maintain and form new friendships after marriage. This thesis, based on interviews with five educated, recently married women in Karachi, Pakistan, further explores how women make negotiations to maintain and form friendships and the way their desires for close friendships, as well as definitions of friendship change after marriage. It also identifies how women’s ways to maintain and form friendships change, for example, meeting in person to connecting on social media apps like Facebook. While we may expect women to disconnect with their friends due to the burden of housework and childcare responsibilities and familial expectations, women find new avenues to maintain friendships, including within their husband’s families. They seek new forms of emotional support and experience a shift in how they define and experience friendships.

Pages

64

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