The effect of culture on women's stance about female identity in marriage in the context of gender roles: A social anthropological study on Çorum province

In this study which aims to compile and evaluate the formation process of the configuration of the concept of woman in Çorum province, it was analyzed how women are affected by the cultural elements existing in the society and how women position themselves in marriage in the context of gender roles which significantly affect the lifestyles of men and women in social aspects. The research was conducted by asking a total of 30 questions (7 of which were in scale format while the remaining 23 were structured as interview questions) to 120 women who are from Çorum and by implementing the necessary reliability analysis to ensure the validity of the study. Religiosity scores were analyzed by using IBM SPSS STATISTICS (v.24). Moreover, Pearson Correlation Analysis was implemented to the data collected to determine the relationship between variables. The margin of error was set as 0.05. The findings indicate that individual desires, emotions, and thoughts are often sacrificed for the continuation of traditional social structures. Although there are exceptional cases, it is clear that social norms predominantly shape the marriages in Çorum. Despite being perceived as a biological instinct, sexuality was observed as a socially and culturally regulated behavior, sometimes even controlled through extreme practices such as "hymenectomy". Furthermore, culture significantly influences the rites of passage such as having children, divorce and inheritance and the responsibilities within marriage, the expectations from marriage and the meaning attributed to the partner. Regarding the statistical findings, a moderate negative correlation was identified between total religiosity scores and socioeconomic status, education level, and alcohol consumption. Additionally, a weak negative correlation was detected between religiosity scores and monthly income and smoking habits. On the other hand, a weak positive correlation was observed between religiosity scores and marital status and age.