To Worship or Not To? The Religious Behaviors of Chinese and Southeast Asian Female Marriage Immigrants and Their Impacts on Family Lives

• Main Authors: Pin-Yu Lin, 林品妤
• Other Authors: Hsiang-Ming Kung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/59385858036864107429

碩士 === 世新大學 === 社會心理學研究所(含碩專班) === 102 === This study is designed to explore the choices and emotional change of Chinese or Southeast Asian female marriage immigrants when they are facing the issue of whether to follow their husbands’ religions or keep their own religious beliefs. In addition, it aims to find out what the husbands’ roles are when the couples believe in different religions as well as what the impacts of religious differences on marital relations. Purposive sampling supplemented by snowball sampling was used to recruit the research subjects. Altogether there were 14 female marriage immigrants participated in this research. Semi-structured interviews were applied for data collection. The interviews were carried out from 2011 to 2012. Results show that all interviewees, except for those Mahayanists, believe in religions different from their husbands’. There was only one among the 14 interviewees who insisted to keep her own religion instead of participating in any religious activity or ceremony of her husband’s family. The rest of the informants followed their husbands’ religious beliefs under the pressures due to “mother-in-law”, “the birth order of their husbands or children” and “their status as a daughter-in-law.” The husbands, on the other hand, would develop four kinds of role to deal with the religious differences between theirs and their wives’. More importantly, believing in different religions indeed caused marital discord. There were two informants who always quarreled with their husbands because of different religious beliefs. Others, on the other hand, developed negative emotions when they were facing the issues related to religious differences. Finally, the author expects these findings could provide more insights to the academic sphere. Moreover, the author wishes to call attention of Taiwanese husbands as well as their families to respect the marriage immigrants’ religions instead of forcing them to assimilate. In turn, the author hopes that Taiwan can truly become a society that respects religious diversities.