Co-educational vs Gender Segregated School Environment on Spouse Selection for Marriage: Perspective of Undergraduates in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Marriage between man and woman has been there from the beginning of mankind. Finding a suitable partner is crucial in everyone's life; this is especially true with Asian communities whose marital bonds are expected to last a lifetime, compared to the case in most other world communities. The purpose of this study is to find out the perception of individuals in a Co-educational versus Gender Segregated school environment in selecting a partner for the marriage. The study was mainly based on the qualitative method and purposive sampling has been used for the study. The unit of analysis was undergraduates of Sri Lanka. Thematic analysis has been used to analyze the data collected through in-depth interviews. The study found the majority of the respondents from gender-segregated educational background preferred to have a spouse from the gender-segregated background rather than from co-educational school from both genders. On the other hand, the majority of respondents from co-educational background preferred to have future spouse selected from the coeducational school background. This study could have several impacts on stakeholders when deciding and educating future children. The study is further expected to be useful to reduce the divorce rate by understanding the scenario where the findings of the contemporary study would provide better insights for the individuals to understand the qualities and behavioral characteristics they would possibly be looking forward from their future spouses on the grounds of the category of school environment they have been attended. Such understanding of the spouse criteria prior to the selection of a mate would be decidedly helpful for the individuals to comprehend the best-suited partner and would thus ultimately bring forth a lesser divorce rate in view of the fact that individuals hereby are enlightened with the particulars of perceptions held on selecting a partner for marriage based on the category of school background.

Keywords: Co-education, Gender segregated, school environment