Methodology
The methods I will be using to investigate my hypotheses are by giving out questionnaires to the Indian community. This is going to be my primary data. All the questions that I will be asking are related to my aims and hypotheses. To back up my primary data and the information I will be searching the internet for surveys and peoples views and information on marriages in the Indian community. This will be my secondary data. I will be justifying my data and methods later on in the justification. I will be picking out quotes from what people have said from the information that I would have colleted to prove that I am correct according to my hypothesis.
Pilot study – Questionnaire
Ethical consideration
The questions that I will be asking are both open and closed. All the questionnaires that people have filled out will remain anonymous because I will not be asking for their names or any personal details. The fact that my questionnaires will remain anonymous, more people may consider to fill one out.
Above is a copy of my pilot study. I am doing a pilot study in case my questionnaire does not go according to plan. I decided to do a pilot questionnaire to see how everything will go and if it will fit into my hypotheses. For example if I have the correct data to prove my hypotheses correct. I will be giving this questionnaire to a female member in the Indian community to fill out.
Below is copy of the questionnaire that the lady filled out:
Main survey – Primary data
The main finding from the pilot study was that I was not getting the persons personal opinion on arranged and love marriages to answer my hypothesis: “People in love marriages will be happier then people in arranged marriages”. For this hypothesis I will need people’s views as the data to prove this hypothesis correct.
The samples that I have chosen to question are random people from my community within my temple. I will be asking both male and female who are over 18 to answer a few questions on arranged marriages. All the people that I will be asking will be the same ethnic group. Everyone will be an Asian Hindu (gujirati).
I chose this sample because the investigation that I am doing is on an Indian community. I first asked them if they would like to answer a questionnaire to help me with my sociology project and explained to them what I was doing and what the questions were based on. I then gave them the questionnaire sheet to fill out and I stood to one side or went to ask other people until they had finished. I have approximately asked 30 people to fill out my questionnaires. I have not specifically chosen 15 males n 15 females, this has been kept as a random sample. The response that I got from everyone was positive as I knew most the people. No one refused to answer my questionnaires.
This questionnaire has been modified from my pilot study. Question 1 from my pilot study has remained the same. In my second question I have added the option for “other” because I only had married, divorced and single. I added “other” because people may be separated or engaged etc. Question 3 has also been changed. I decreased the age gap between the choices to give me more of a feeling about the age groups because if it was left as 18 – 30 then there would be a 12 year age gap and I wouldn’t no approximately how old the interviewee could be. Question 4 was kept the same. Question 5, I gave options of how long they has been married, but people might have been married for much longer than 11 years, for example 20years and I would not know as I have not put an option there, for them 2 write how long they have been married. In question 6 I put an option for good and bad but did not have an option for “both” or “don’t know”. I think this was inappropriate so I have altered that. Question 7 was kept the same. Question 8 was also kept the same but without giving a reason to say why they quoted this for a particular question. This is the main mistake I made on my questionnaire. Question 9 was also kept the same. With an exception of question 8, I think my questions were relevant to all my hypotheses.
This questionnaire is my actual one (main survey):
Justification
This questionnaire shows an example of one filled out:
Primary data analysis
I have to say that I did have some problems with my questionnaire, but the problems were dealt with properly. I had to help a few people fill out questionnaires as they did not know how to read or understand English. In this matter I had to translate it for them in gujirati verbally. I only gave out the questionnaires to people who were 18 and over because I thought that I would not get suitable answers as they were too young to think this ahead of their future.
I have proved all three of my hypotheses correct by giving out this questionnaire. The answers that people have given me have helped me a lot with my research of proving my hypotheses correct. I will be putting all the data that I collected from my questionnaires in my data presentation.
Secondary data
“Ask youngsters if they would prefer a love marriage or an arranged one and you are mostly likely to get `love marriage’ as the answer. Most teenagers will tell you arranged marriage is old fashioned.”
“Arranged marriage could then be an easy way to marry in a short time. On the other hand, it had to be noted that, normally, courtship is not generally intended as a mere sequence of actions caused by the need of marrying or that automatically could produce a marriage as an effect. These cases, therefore, essentially put in evidence that mentalities about marriage and personal choices (and considerations) about certain important decisions, can vary across the cultures and among single men and women.”
“Arranged marriages also includes participation (sometimes very active, other times, equal or less) of parents. But most urbanite grooms or brides today are given the final decision-making authority. Of course, the number of love marriages is increasing by day. But I firmly believe that arranged marriages are here to stay.”
“Arranged marriage was common in many countries until the , and is still practiced in some lands, but an increasing number of young people today refuse arranged marriage.”
With increasing interaction between boys and girls and change in family outlook aided by information technology, the popularity of love marriages is on the rise.
The primary reason for the continuing ‘tradition’ of arranged marriages is that the pattern of arranged marriage is changing. It is no longer groom seeing the wife at the wedding for the first time. There are non-formal ways of interaction between the two before they take a decision.
Social aspects
“As of , arranged marriage is still the most common form of marriage in several countries in , in particular , , , and . It crosses boundaries of , and , practiced by , , , , and alike. It is practiced to a lesser extent in tribal and rural areas in parts of the . It used to be the norm in urban areas as well, but is vanishing quickly from there. It was also common in , , and , but is now rapidly diminishing in these countries.
Below are statements people have made about love and arranged marriages:
Purnima states that “approval of the boy by her parents and relatives played an important role in her decision making. Though love marriages are becoming more common.”
Says Neelima Khatri, 17, “I cannot imagine marrying a guy I have not dated. Though my parents’ marriage was an arranged one, those were different times. I have to spend some months with the guy before tying the knot.” she says.
Anup Malhotra says “I do not believe in the concept of arranged marriages. I mean, how on earth can you choose your life partner in two or three meetings. Marriages cannot be arranged, they will just happen.”
Secondary analysis
“Ask youngsters if they would prefer a love marriage or an arranged one and you are mostly likely to get `love marriage’ as the answer. Most teenagers will tell you arranged marriage is old fashioned.” – This statement proves that love marriage is more common than arranged. This is my first hypothesis.
My second hypothesis is also proved correct with my “social aspects” reseacrch in the secondary data that I have collected. The paragragh is above.
“Arranged marriage was common in many countries until the , and is still practiced in some lands, but an increasing number of young people today refuse arranged marriage.” With increasing interaction between boys and girls and change in family outlook aided by information technology, the popularity of love marriages is on the rise - The statement above proves my third hypothesis correct. This is a saying that I have research over the internet. I will be giving the websites that I used to researched this in the bibliography. Some of the other statements in my secondary data also prove this hypothesis correct.
Data presentation
This section of my coursework shows the data I have collected from the questionnaires in different methods, such as different graphs.
Question 1: Male or Female?
Question 2: Are you: Married, Divorced, Single, or Other ?
Bibliography
