Maternal perceptions of family environment in intact,widowed and divorced families amongst Indian South Africans

Abstract

Indian mothers from intact, widowed and divorced low socio-economic status families participated in a study to investigate maternal perceptions of family environment on the dimensions of cohesion, conflict, expressiveness, organization, and moral-religious emphasis. Divorced mothers perceived their families as being significantly lower on cohesion than intact and widowed families. They perceived their families as having significantly higher conflict than married mothers. The degree of organization was significantly higher for intact versus widowed and divorced groups. For the intact group, the extended families were higher on moral-religious emphasis than were the nuclear families. However, in both father-absent households, this was higher for the nuclear, compared to extended families. The study supports the view that maternal perceptions of family environment is more positive in intact versus father-absent (widowed and divorced) families.