Biological contingency and adaptation to celibacy among girls aged 35 and over in Yazd city

Celibacy among women in Iran is on the rise. This phenomenon varies across different decades and contexts, influenced by social and cultural conditions, which can impart diverse meanings and biological patterns. One group experiencing definitive or semi-definitive celibacy is women in their sixties. The aim of the current research is to explore and analyze their lifestyles and methods of adapting to society. This qualitative study was conducted in Yazd in 2023. The participants included 15 unmarried women aged 35 and older from Yazd, who were selected purposefully. Data were analyzed using a semi-structured interview method. The results of the research indicate that the participants are inevitably living in a situation characterized by minimal psychological well-being. Despite this, they are compelled to adapt. Five relevant themes emerged from the study: adaptability, spiritualism, cognitive regeneration, , purposeful living, and attachment. Overall, the research demonstrates that the participants have developed a way of life that they can accept and manage, even while holding a somewhat unrealistic view of marriage. This adaptation allows them to enhance their mental and social well-being. However, despite these coping strategies, this group faces numerous challenges in achieving a sense of welfare, which necessitates greater attention from policymakers, particularly in the area of women's issues.
 
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Keywords




Girls, Celibacy, Contingent compatibility, Lived experience, Family, Spirituality
 
‌Introduction
As an independent individual, single girls, due to facing different living conditions, adopt strategies for personal peace and internal challenges and sexual-emotional problems. They also use strategies to reduce these conflicts and adjust relationships in relation to their surrounding environment, such as family and society. Although it seems that achieving this desirability does not happen completely, they try to change unwanted conditions in a way that allows them to achieve at least some aspects of their desired life. This issue is of great importance in terms of research and policy-making. On the one hand, Iranian society is facing a supertrend of singleness among women and men. On the other hand, singleness among women can be considered more important due to gender discrimination, although single men also have their own problems and challenges. Understanding ways to adapt to singleness, its complex and significant issues and problems, is a research need that can be of service to social policymakers. Policies that can cover the mental and welfare well-being of a large number of these people. Given the knowledge gap in the field and the necessity of research and policy-making, and also considering the lengthening of the period of singleness among young Yazdites with a statistic of about 36 thousand single women aged 20-49 (never married, without a husband due to divorce or widowhood) in Yazd province (Askari-Nadushan et al., 1400), the aim of the present study is to discover and analyze strategies for adapting to singleness among girls aged 35 and above in Yazd city.
A general assessment of the review of the literature (Ahmadabadi and Barkhodari, Shahmoradi and Bokani (1402); Dehghan Hesar et al., Akbari et al., Ganji et al., Khosravi et al., Madadhi et al., Fallah Minbashi, Gholami et al. (1400); Ghiyathvand and Hajilo (2019); Modaresi Yazdi et al. (2017); Ghaderzadeh et al. (2017); Hosseini and Izadi (2016); Sophia Hervakh (2018); Padhanji, Kanchan Gandhi, Gulfam et al. (2016); Sevikal et al. (2005)) showed that there is rarely a focus on the strategies and tactics of girls in facing singleness; also, the few studies that have existed in this field have been, along with the challenges, and the main purpose of the research has been to examine their challenges. Very limited attention has been paid to examining how to cope with these challenges adaptively and to try to form psychosocial well-being among them.
 
Methodology
The present study is a qualitative study conducted in 1402 among single girls aged 35 to 55 in Yazd city. This group consists of single girls, especially those aged 35 to 45. Less hope for the possibility of marriage (due to increasing age), similarities in the time period of life (age range of 50s and 60s), and relatively similar family experiences (generally with parents in their 20s, 30s and 40s) are among their most important commonalities. According to the researchers, this age group has lived in a different social and cultural framework than girls from the 70s onwards. Participants were selected using purposive sampling and heterogeneous sampling with maximum diversity. Also, in selecting the samples, an effort was made to consider maximum diversity and to determine the interviewees with different educations and occupations and in different social classes, so that richer descriptions can be narrated in relation to the research topic. It should be noted that among the participants there were several immigrants who had been living in Yazd for many years. Finally, the interviews continued until saturation was reached. Considering the data saturation criterion, 15 people were included in the study.
 
Findings
The participants state that despite all the hardships they face in their single lives, the necessity of continuing life makes them make no effort to increase their psychosocial well-being, and each of them uses strategies such as positivity, personal growth, seeking refuge in spirituality, and the like to create peace and adapt to the challenges they face. They are also forced to be flexible in dealing with the tensions ahead, and group life, while sometimes considered a stress-causing factor, can also become a factor for increasing adaptation and dealing with their existential unrest. Finally, by evaluating the interviews, 5 themes were obtained: adaptability, spirituality, cognitive re-creation, purposeful living, and attachment.
 
Conclusion
The results of the study showed that the participants live in an unavoidable situation that has minimal psychological well-being. Despite this, they are forced to adapt. In this regard, they go through a lot of trial and error and experience a lot of tensions in their lives for different individual, family and social situations in order to reduce tension and increase peace. In many cases, the challenges faced by the participating girls are the same and even their chosen strategies are the same. This means that celibacy contains common experiences that, in the cultural-social framework of Iran, despite the differences in individual attitudes and the degree of dominance of tradition, people are forced to adopt similar strategies to find peace and comfort. The study shows that the participants are in a contingent adaptation. In fact, despite much effort to improve psychological and social well-being, they do not consider the existing conditions to be ideal conditions and they are still far from their mental conditions.
 
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