Relationship Between Body Image, Marital Offense-Specific Forgiveness, and Marital Happiness in Urban and Rural Married Women Aged 20 - 35

Abstract

Background: Identifying the main factors that affect body image (BI) is of utmost importance within the realm of marital relationships. In light of this, the present study investigated the relationship between BI, marital offense-specific forgiveness (MOF), and marital happiness (MH) among married women aged 20 - 35, living in urban and rural areas in the city of Jahrom, Fars Province, Iran. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on 608 married women aged 20 - 35, residing in urban and rural areas and referring to the comprehensive community health centers in the city of Jahrom, Fars province, Iran, selected by stratified-cluster sampling. For this purpose, the statistical population was divided into two groups, viz., the urban and rural women, and sampling was done in keeping with their population. The Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ), the Marital Happiness Scale (MHS), and the Marital Offense-Specific Forgiveness Scale (MOFS) were further applied to collect the data, which were then analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 software package. Results: Comparing the MHS mean scores showed a statistically significant difference between urban and rural women (P < 0.001). Additionally, a statistically significant difference was observed in the BI mean scores of the study groups, particularly in the appearance evaluation (AE) subscale (P < 0.001). The regression analysis results also demonstrated that MH could affect BI (P < 0.001) Conclusions: The study results revealed that MH and MOF could lead to a positive BI in married women.