Abstract
Not much being known about psychiatric patients' marital and parental expectations, an investigation has been done in an in-patient service of a general hospital through a questionnaire used previously.
The experimental group is composed of thirty patients, all single, Catholic, from lower social class; fourteen men (35% neurotics and 65% psychotics) and sixteen women (50% neurotics and 50% psychotics); schizophrenia is found in 50% of each sub-group. The control group is composed of 173 subjects, all single, Catholic, from lower social class; 100 men and 73 women whose age is approximately the same.
About the nineteen questions related to the ideal marital relationship, the sick men are significantly different only once from the normals (expecting less often the wife visiting her parents) whereas the sick women have different expectations from the normal women seven times (expecting an older husband, hoping for more frequent company of the husband and expecting less verbal communication between the spouses).
About the nine variables related to intermarriage, the sick men are different four times from the controls (more open to marriage with Protestant French Canadians, with non-French-Canadian Catholics, with recent French immigrants who have no religious practice and with Negro Haitian Catholics). On the other hand, the sick women are different three times from the normals (less open to marriage with Catholic French Canadians, their own ethnic group, and more open to marriage with Protestant French Canadians and with Jewish Canadians).
About the seven questions related to the ideal parental relationship, the sick men always agree with the normals whereas the sick women are three times different from the normals (expecting fewer children, expecting less co-operation from the husband in the care of children, and wishing to teach them more often how to find new ways to live).
Except for the attitudes towards intermarriage, one can observe that the sick women are much more often deviant (ten times against once) than the sick men from the social norms. It seems that this striking difference is related to the greater importance for women of the marital and parental roles; it would seem probable that the sick men give evidence of their deviance in the work and leisure spheres.