Self in marriage, marriage in the self: negotiating 'modern' and 'traditional' values in Thai newlywed marriages

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Social Sciences and Communications, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

Recent debates in studies of family and relationships have paid great attention to the transformation of marriage. The dichotomy of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ marriage has proved useful in conceptualizing different marriage types; however, it may also limit our understanding of the transformation of marriage. How are discourses around these competing marriage models negotiated by individuals? And how do these negotiations influence their construction of marriage? This thesis elaborates on these questions by analysing the experiences of twenty-two Thai newlyweds in order to explore the ways they develop married selves and marriages through navigating the competing ideals of tradition and modernity. In[-]depth interviews were conducted both individually and together, then analysed through a symbolic interactionist approach. The approach contributes to making sense of how married selves are developed in self-reflexivity and how ‘joint actions’ in marital situations are achieved by pointing to the agency of individuals. I argue that marriage is an arena of ‘practice’ in which newlyweds develop a ‘married self’ in relation to the meaning attached to marriage and marital roles. The newlyweds’ experiences demonstrate that both the ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ values are sets of ideas from which the couples choose in creating their particular version of the marital relationship. Thus, I argue that what happens in Thai marriages neither follows a rigid pattern/fixed script determined by ‘tradition’, nor demonstrates a complete freedom of choice and self-fulfilment as suggested by ideas of ‘modernity’. Rather, experiences of becoming married are an example of ‘family practice’—doing and action in family relations. This reinforces the notion that traditional and modern values are not able to be assumed as something ‘real’ that can be uncritically described, but rather are social constructions to which individuals and groups have different relationships at different times, enabling those constructions to be subject to change over time and to vary across individuals/groups.