Abstract
A mental health survey of fourteen rural Quebec and Ontario communities of various cultural backgrounds, revealed that the active prevalence of schizophrenia in the three traditional French-Canadian communities chosen was much higher than in any of the remainder, Careful re-examination of the data indicated that the difference was genuine, not deriving from diagnostic bias or cultural outlook of the investigators, from the age structure or socio-economical level of the communities, or from differences in use of psychiatric services. The excess of cases, however, proved to lie almost wholly in the female half of the population, and further analysis showed that the disorder struck especially at young unmarried women and at middle-aged married ones, the younger married group being relatively free.
Sociological investigations suggest that one of the factors contributing to the observed excess of schizophrenia is a discrepancy between the actual and the nominal roles occupied by women in the traditional communities. Other factors may be the greater tolerance of dependency which the latter show, the greater clarity with which they enforce their concept of the sick role, and their greater intolerance of other forms of deviancy.