94 Russian Social Science Review

Russian Social Science Review, vol. 54, no. 1, JanuaryFebruary 2013, pp. 94113.
2013 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 10611428 (print)/ISSN 15577848 (online)

M.E. Eliutina

Marital Relationships in Old Age

The data of a sociological survey conducted in the city of Saratov in
2009 reveal a narrow perception of the everyday lives of an elderly
married couple on the part of those who are in regular contact with
them (relatives, neighbors, and friends). They are most often described
in terms of a declining trajectory of health and material security, or
performance of generic activities (gardening, tending grandchildren),
and only rarely in terms of the emotional relationship between the
married partners.

In the scientific literature most of the emphasis is placed on young

families, which are seen as meriting social priority in todays society. The problems of elderly married couples that represent the
insiders of social life are left on the periphery of scientific interest.
Scientific research tends either to ignore them or to automatically
project onto them the standards and resources of life and activity
that characterize young families. This approach is due to the following factors.
The number of elderly families [i.e., marriages] is shrinking,
English translation 2012, 2013 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text
2010 the author. Supruzheskie otnosheniia v pozhilom vozraste, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 2010, no. 11, pp. 8392. A publication of the Russian
Academy of Sciences; the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology,
and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences; and the Russian Union of Industrialists
and Entrepreneurs.
Translated by Kim Braithwaite. Translation reprinted from Sociological
Research, vol. 51, no. 1.
Marina Eduardovna Eliutina is a doctor of sociological sciences, a professor,
and head of the Department of Sociology at Saratov State Technical University.
94

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linked, first, to higher mortality among men of various ages; in

this life situation, a widow is rarely likely to remarry, and second,
to a tendency toward an increasing divorce componentonly a
limited number of married couples live together later in life, as
married.1
Todays cultural traditions ascribe to an aging person or to an
elderly family a problematic, deviant status, conditioned by the
perception that their resources have been depleted. The particular
character of elderly families does not get the attention it deserves.
At the same time, social practices have brought in their wake certain negative social and economic consequences. It has become
obvious that elderly families occupy their own special niche. It
has become a unique place where fundamental human needs are
met, a sphere in which the basic activity and leisure-time component are accommodated and practices of mutual support are
engaged in. The family holds one of the top places in the value
structure of representatives of the older generation. Just having
someone who is close becomes the predominant value, the ability
to live life together with that person and to be engaged in shared
activity [1].
The family of an elderly person is characterized by particular
features with its own configurations and contours. It is no longer
a child-centered structure, and the search for personally focused
pursuits takes place. What becomes most important in this regard
is a special mode of interaction both within and outside the family, under the conditions of a limited social dynamic and a limited
choice among alternative life strategies. The elderly family functions on the principle of communicating vessels, which makes
it a quite sturdy monolithic entity. For each of its members
the family serves as a roof that offers protection against malign
chaos (Boris Pasternak). New significant goals are formed, such
as autonomy and the adaptation syndrome, and strengthening of
the status of intimacy.
With regard to the structure and functions of the elderly family,
starting from the empty nest phase, a number of functions gradually begin to be lost: loss of the socializing function (when the
children leave the family) and a reduced transmission of cultural

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experience and knowledge. A situation takes shape in which the

elderly, feeling out of step with the changing conditions of the
time, remove themselves from the upbringing of grandchildren,
and in this way a closed circle is formed. Old age becomes disposable: if the family no longer serves the function of socialization and having children; and if the function of the relaying and
transmission of cultural values has declined and is less useful to
the state and to society. The fact is, however, that when certain
functions are diminished, other functions become stronger. The
supportive function of the elderly family gains priority, as married
couples provide mutual aid in economic matters and psychological compensation for all kinds of burdens. Based on its protective
function, the family acts as a barrier to any immediate incursion
by other social institutions (in particular, the state) into its private
life. The mediating function is manifested in that the family of
an elderly person often serves as a kind of little bridge between
relatives, a connecting link in interpersonal relations, the keeper of
the history of the family and its traditions, the family albums and
memories of the family homestead. This function is manifested
with special salience in the case of mixed extended families, that
is, family alliances formed on the basis of remarriages, with a
complex structure of kinship relations.
The ideology of the family is changing in the direction of
privacyfrom a strategy of expansion and explicitness in the
social space toward greater focus on its own problems within the
family. An increased need is sensed for security and stability; more
attention is paid to existential problems; introversion predominates
(immersion in the world of inner feelings); and less need is felt for
active involvement in the external environment.
Often the mode of existence of elderly families is beset with
problems (poverty and intergenerational conflict). In terms of
economic indicators, elderly families can be differentiated into two
groups. For one group, which is classified among socially vulnerable groups, the main source of income is the state pension, social
insurance, benefit payments, and subsidiespractices of survival
that are characterized by constant economizing. The other cohort
within the older generation enjoys much more wealth, authority,

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and prestige. According to a study by the Institute of Sociology,

Russian Academy of Sciences, The Low-Income Poor in Russia: Who Are They? What Are Their Lives Like? What Do They
Strive For? conducted in MarchApril 2008, with a sample of
1,750, retirees today are the most unprotected group in the Russian
population. Half of them are classified as the low-income poor, and
another 30 percent are poor. Only 20 percent are classified in the
relatively well-off population strata [2]. At present, the incomes
of elderly families are about two times smaller than the incomes
of young families [3].
In our study of elderly couples, we base ourselves on two key
terms. First, the concept marital relationships refers to the spatial
and temporal closeness of a man and a woman as husband and wife,
the private nature of their interpersonal relations, and it includes
the exchange of both activities and sentiments (G. Homans).
The characterization of relations between husband and wife, in
terms of content, may vary from order and serenity in the marital
relationship, and clashes and conflicts that can have destructive
consequences. The regulation of marital relations is designed primarily to maintain trust and a feeling of security.
Second, the term old age of the family includes two senses:
a particular stage in the development of family relations; and
a particular type of family, in which the spouses are classified
as belonging to the gerontological group. In our study we have
used both semantic meanings of the term old age of the family.
The focus is on the key everyday problems of elderly married
couples who have lived together for a substantial amount of time.
We were interested specifically in the matrimonial state, the
partnership that has the status of an independent institution that
plays a vital role in older age, as well as the presence or absence
of interpersonal conflicts behind the scenes (Mamardashvili),
which always result from hidden, private causes. We also focused
our attention on determining the specific character of significant others social perception of the everyday problems of an
elderly married couple. A qualitative survey was conducted for
the purpose of diagnosing relations between husband and wife.
The collection and analysis of the material was carried out us-

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ing the double reflection method [4] based on an unstructured,

informal interview. We used both a targeted sample (we selected
people in advance who represent informationally significant cases
about which we had preliminary knowledge) and the snowball
method, in which the following question was posed to each
informant at the end of the interview: Can you name someone
among your associates who regularly interacts with an elderly
married couple? We selected a number of informants based on
the answers we obtained. The empirical base is represented by
twenty-six in-depth interviews with elderly people (age sixtyfive and older, living separately from relatives and having lived
together for twenty-five years or more) and seventeen interviews
with people who interact regularly with elderly married couples
(children, relatives, and neighbors). We surveyed inhabitants of
the city of Saratov (FebruarySeptember 2009).
The survey results revealed a definitely narrow perception of
the everyday problems of an elderly married couple on the part
of those who have been in constant contact with them for a long
time (relatives, neighbors, and friends). From our perspective, this
specific perception of the everyday problems of an elderly married
couple stems from the dominance of the medically oriented portrayal disseminated in the mass media, of the image of the elderly
person as someone who is dependent and ailing. The semantic axis
of the problems mentioned by our informants as characterizing the
everyday life of an elderly married couple, includes the following
meaningful aspects.
The emphasis is on the secluded and well-ordered nature of the
private life of the elderly family, which is perceived as a kind of
Small Town in a Snuffbox [Gorodok v tabakerke; 1838 tale of
Vladimir Odoevsky], as a kind of hermetically sealed environment
in which there is no dynamic of development and renewal.
Well, they actually have no special problems, they get up, they have
something to eat, they do a few things, they do not have to rush off to
work, their life is well ordered, and anyway what would they need at
that age? We come to visit on holidays, and sometimes we drop in for
a week. (male interviewee born in 1963)

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The elderly family is seen as an object of assistance, which will

need a certain amount of material and personal help either at present or in the near future.
Right now our parents are getting along without outside help. But, you
know, getting old does not make you stronger, they will need help, they
might even need a caregiver, all kinds of situations can come about.
(male born in 1968)

Among the main problems of elderly peoples everyday lives,

the two most often named are health and material security. At that
age, each one has a whole array of ailments, first one illness worsens
and then another does. A lot of money goes to buy medicine, which
is getting more costly all the time (female born in 1963).
Their pensions are meager, I do not know how they manage to cope.
I can see that they are thrifty, they do their shopping in the bazaar,
where things are a little bit cheaper although not by much, than they
are in the stores; they schedule all of their upcoming expenses in
advance, they make sure there is enough to pay for their utilities, and
they never buy anything like durable long-playing household things.
(male born in 1971)

The informants emphasize that the spouses focus on their

everyday domestic problems among which the informants made
special mention of these: dacha and garden activities, children and
grandchildren:
In the summer they plant and water things, and in the winter they do
things in the home. The rhythm of their life is seasonal. In the winter
they can hardly wait for summer to come in order to get out of the city
and go to the dacha. They feel better there and associate with their
friends. (male born in 1966)

They tend their grandchildren, feed them, welcome them home

from school, and watch over them (female born in 1973).
A fusion without individuality. In the way they express things
the informants, as a rule, combine husband and wife into the
verbal constructs them or the old folks, which wipe out any
differentiation between the couples roles and presuppose a totally
standard formula of behavior whose semantic meaning is expressed

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in sayings such as the man and wife are alike in all things and
old age is not fun.
The informants answers reflect an unjustifiably narrowed representation of the everyday problems in the life of an elderly married couple. The answers are dominated by extensive, quantitative
characterizations of the elderly spouses, fixated on the existence
of changes of the reductiondeteriorationdecline type, with no
focus on any intensive qualitative characterization of their life.
The construed social portrait of the elderly family represents it
as passive and helpless. Often, the term elderly family itself is
not interpreted as an analytical term but as a synonym for something that basically belongs to the past although it still exists
in the present. As a result, elderly families are firmly entrenched
in peoples everyday consciousness as the outsiders of social
life, as homebound hospices living lives that are characteristically relaxed, in which nothing essential or significant takes
place. None of the respondents mentioned, even in passing, any
interpersonal relations between married couples and problems
associated with them. Apparently this area of family life at the
present age phase represents a blind spot that is not subject to
public expression or characterized by problematic tension. It cannot be ruled out that ignoring the zone of interpersonal interaction
may be a kind of defensive reaction to the prospect of growing
old together.
Based on the results of the survey we have singled out two types
of interpersonal clashes behind the scenes: those that are current,
involving local matters that can be settled peacefully as a rule, and
those that are chronic and, sometimes, have a destructive impact.
Elderly married couples may experience hidden opposition that can
turn into a volatile mixture and result in conflict. It may stem
from resentments from long ago relating to infidelity, improper
behavior, the conviction that ones partner is not able, or does not
want, to live the way everyone else does, in other words, to live
up to certain standards. Very often the piling up, the accumulation
of various resentments yields a cumulative effect that leads to
conflict. It may be manifested in an exchange of harsh words, up

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to and including a display of outright aggression, complaints, nagging, and insults. Adult children, relatives, and close friends may
become involved in the tension between the elderly spouses. All
of these things are upsetting to many people, adversely affecting
their health and ability to work.
It is perfectly clear that trying to find the kind of all-purpose
power that would make relations between married partners sturdy,
strong, and eternal is like trying to find the special ticking power
in a mechanical clock (H. Bergson). For this reason, as criteria for
our characterization, in terms of content, of the interpersonal relations between an elderly married couple, we looked at the indicators of marital integration: living together, running a household
together, keeping a joint household budget, the ways of assigning
household obligations, ways of resolving interpersonal conflicts,
and the degree of involvement in interpersonal relations. We singled
out the following types of elderly married couples in terms of the
rating/category of relations between the partners.
The Little Orchestra of Hope [a song by Bulat Okudzhava]
they think alike and have the same feelings, the husband or the
wife is the significant other with whom one can share what is most
precious and important, someone who listens attentively and will
offer useful advice, someone who helps the other to enjoy spiritual
comfort. As a rule, there is no obvious imbalance of power: most
of the decisions are made by both partners; for the most part, the
allocation of powers is linked to how each one feels, and his or her
ability to engage in various activities. The relations are flexible,
there are no notable fluctuations of sympathies and antipathies;
such a family is tolerant of conflict; the existence of established
conventions between the married partners, and successful patterns
of the habits of life, substantially reduces the likelihood that conflicts will arise, or it makes their resolution as easy as possible.
The married partners actions, when there are conflicts, which,
for the most part, are of a local character, are not oriented toward
destructive analysis but toward restorative synthesis that reinforces
the foundations of life.
The symbiotic nature of the married couple becomes stronger

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and stronger: elderly married partners are observed to be similar

in terms of not only life strategy but also habits and everyday practices; and shared filters are formed that make it possible to choose a
given interpretation of external events. First, these filters represent
limiting factors of perception and are linked to neurophysiological abilities associated with age. Second, they are linked to social
and genetic factors such as traditions, prescriptions, and language
systems. Third, they are linked with individual characteristics that
also become adjusted in the direction of greater uniformity. Often,
married couples even begin to look alike physically: Everyone
tells us that we even look alike. We have learned how to be silent
together. I know what he is thinking about or what he will say
(female born in 1932).
The symbiosis, we believe, is linked, first, with the quantitative
and qualitative characteristics of the individuals life space. In
their examination of the life space on the plane of age, researchers
have noted a number of patterns: during the period of his acme,
the individual strives to expand the sphere of his life and activity,
at times rising to the global level. Little children and older people,
if the latter are no longer involved in social activity (civic or professional), have a considerably smaller amount of life space [5].
Second, the symbiosis is due to a kind of natural selection that
the married partners have experienced over the lengthy period of
their life together. Many sociopsychological phenomena were not
characteristic of the married partners from the very beginning, but
formed as the result of compensation for corresponding intrapersonal feelings, by the experience of personal relations.
Before, when we were just starting out in life together, we quarreled
a lot, we said mean things to each other, we tried to prove we were in
the right, we felt insulted. But now, we do not even have conflicts, and
if we do happen to have a spat, we put it aside right away. How? I go
into the kitchen to have a little drink of vodka, and all of a sudden the
spat is over. (male born in 1934)

Elderly peoples heightened level of bonding also performs

a defensive function. Both married partners experience similar
mental states; they are characterized by a high level of empathetic

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feelings, which significantly helps them to find the strategies

needed to get out of a crisis situation. When he goes away, I do
not know what to do with myself, I am kind of anxious; when
he comes back it is like a burden off my shoulders, and I can
find something useful to do (female born in 1940). She is my
guardian angel, she takes care of me. This is why I cannot afford
to get sick, I see how it upsets her and she does not know what
to do (male born in 1929).
As a rule, the reduction in the spectrum of family social roles
coincides with making them more concrete. In these elderly families
we find differentiated roles, for the most part not linked to gender
but to the physical abilities of the married partners, and their inclinations. Each of us has particular duties. But, in the long run,
everything depends on our wishes and how we feel (female born
in 1938). In the course of the interviews a recurring refrain was the
idea of the importance of mutual efforts and sacrifices, working
to improve ourselves, the inner critic and regulator, finding
areas of agreement, meticulous conduct of our life together, and
taking account of the interests of the other half for the purpose
of building the family cathedral. Married life has to be created
like a work of art (male born in 1936).
Such a family is based on a multilevel, interconnected matrix
that binds the past and the present together and prepares the way
to overcome the present and move forward. It truly represents the
art of existence of people who are close to each other, who, based
on reflexive and willed practices, establish for themselves the
rules of behavior; and they also strive to transform themselves in
a situation where they live side by side. The married partners are
attuned to each other, they become extraordinarily attentive and
are able to detect signals of the others physical and spiritual state,
often expressed without even being conscious of it. This type of
family represents the results of gradually growing together, a
copy of the mutual efforts that have been made by each of the
married partners during all of the preceding stages of the familys
development.
The conflict harmony type with the characteristics that are

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intrinsic to the type: Life together includes relatively peaceful

as well as stormy days and also clashes that are not very stormy.
Predominating local clashes do not change the life of the elderly
family in terms of meaningful content. Small clashes are fully
commensurate with the normal mode of interaction. There is
no conflict urgency. The conflict field can be defused by means of
rectifiers of any interactions that go awry; these rectifiers include
the following. Humor and self-deprecation are points of feeling
that, in everyday life, make it possible to relieve tension and
defuse a situation. I call our family a ship of fools, of course
I am joking. I myself love to have a laugh, and my wife always
backs me up. If there is no humor, everything goes numb, and
any silly exchange of harsh words can turn into a conflict (male
born in 1943). Hobbies, collecting, simple home amusements:
in this case, the selective collecting of artifacts focuses only on
the things significant to the individual, so that the hobby has a
positive emotional charge and can be a mechanism that absorbs
the shock of negative emotions.
For more than twenty years now my husband has been collecting postal
greeting cards, and his collection fills twelve albums. Whenever we
start letting it all hang out and cannot reach an understanding, he gets
out his albums. For him, everything else in the world ceases to exist,
he puts up a wall and disappears behind it. (female born in 1937)

There are special strategies for rewarming relations: prepare

a favorite dish, remember something pleasant, have the grandchildren come over, forgive, do not let a fault be a misfortune.
These mechanisms can lead to the softening or, more accurately, the
dispersal of any clashes and open the way to constructive patterns of
behavior between husband and wife. Nonetheless, in these families,
while there are firmly established gender roles, their boundaries are
not fixed, and this makes it possible to free the intellectual space of
the married partners relations from prejudices and archetypes of
patriarchal thinking (such as the man as the producer of sense
and the woman as the vessel of sense).
Permafrost: The married partners are neither friends nor

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enemies, neither close nor alien. Indifference takes the place of

mutual understanding or hostility. The family in this case is only
a pretty cover that hides systems that have become separate.
The characterization of the relations between married partners in
terms of content includes the following aspects: dissociation and
distance, atomization in the family, so that each one is on his or
her own, and as a rule they have individual budgets; pragmatic
differentiation of the functions, such that he goes to the store
while she does the laundry; decomposition of the other, in that
the husband or wife is perceived not as a whole personality but
as a kind of combination of functional segments.
To designate the causes that have led to the freezing of relations between husband and wife we can use the metaphor of the
butterfly effect (Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder). This
metaphor perfectly illustrates the fact that in married life small
causes often bring about substantial changes in interpersonal
relations and give them a particular profile.
We are alien to each other even though we have been living under
the same roof for forty years now. We have two children and three
grandchildren. Life has gone on, and we have just continued keeping
to ourselves, in our own closed circle. The reason? I myself am unable
to answer that question. Maybe sometime in the past I offended her
somehow, but when and how? It is impossible to say for sure. Sometimes, you know, one carelessly uttered phrase is enough to make a
person turn chilly for life. (male born in 1935)

I cannot say just when our married life broke down. But something
important is missing in our lives. And now it is too late to change
anything (male born in 1932).
Conflict families are characterized by a progressive reduction of interpersonal relations to the level of simple patterns of
stimulus and response, which is manifested in the form of
negative phenomena: aggressiveness, vindictiveness, and total
criticism by the married partners. In such families the clashes
are caused not so much by antagonistic reactions to the changes
that are occurring but by the married partners themselves who are
constantly getting at each other. States of uncertainty and sus-

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picion in this case become chronic and turn the relations between
husband and wife into a vale of suffering. Often, a wide circle of
significant others will get involved in the conflict between the married
partners. Children, other relatives, and close friends find themselves
having to take the side of one of the married partners and become
the enemy of the other one. Moreover, the provocative factor may be
a completely random occurrence such as a word uttered in passing,
a look, or a gesture. In this case we are not talking so much about
local conflicts but about chronic conflicts, the causes of which the
respondents often formulated as a general expression such as they
just didnt get along. But hidden behind each they just didnt get
along is a special cause that is not transparent or overt, is often
hidden to the respondent himself, and can be extracted by interpreting the interview data that were obtained. We have singled out the
following causes.
Unrealized goals or plans of development can be set when one of
the married partners compares himself or herself and his or her life
with some model or standard and, at the same time, is conscious of
missed opportunities. The feelings that are linked to some episode
in life that can no longer be made right, impose an imperative on
behavior and emotional states, where often a situation arises in
which life becomes unbearable. As a result, the individuals no
longer have any grounds for positive assessments of themselves
or their lives. Sometimes zombie situations are quite plausible but
are in reality only a simulation of something that is actually dead.
A cognitive leap into an unrealized opportunity occurs, which is
manifested in the expression what if . . . There is an inner conviction that some alternative would have been better than the way
things have turned out in the present.
It happened that two men asked for my hand in marriage at the same
time. I liked both of them. I thought about it and thought about it, and,
unfortunately, I made the wrong choice. To this day I still suffer, we are
like a cat and a dog living together, we swear at each other every day,
and it is always over some silly thing. And if I had only married Sergei
instead, I would now be in heaven. Why am I so sure? Because a
friend of my girlhood got him. And she has been living without a care
in the world ever since. (female born in 1938)

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Spousal resentment of heuristic significance in any analysis of

interpersonal clashes, in our opinion, is the theory of resentment
developed by Max Scheler [6], who defined it as psychic dynamite, as slow acting poison of the soul. In the authors opinion,
resentment is a negative feeling conditioned by an extreme tension
between impulses of retribution, hatred, envy, and their manifestations, on the one hand, and powerlessness, on the other hand, which
is a feeling manifested in the sphere of interpersonal relations in
the form of negative phenomena: aggressiveness, vindictiveness,
and total criticism. According to Scheler, relations between married
partners are largely affected by typical situations of resentment that,
owing to their formative character are, so to speak, loaded with a
certain dose of the danger of falling into resentment, regardless
of the individual characters of the people involved in them. In our
own study, we have singled out situations of resentment that are
linked to the following factors.
First, are those that are linked to resentful envy with respect to
components in the sphere of interpersonal relations that have a high
value: the wealth, beauty, intelligence, successful career, social
prestige, and prized character traits of one of the married partners
with respect to the other.
My husband was always conceited. To be sure, you cannot get very
far by conceit alone. But conceitedness, multiplied by good looks
and charm, have made it possible for him to have a brilliant career in
structures of ruling authority. But power acts as a kind of potion that
goes to ones head, calms ones fears, and plays tricks on a persons
vision, and he begins to think that he is much more wonderful than
he is in reality. I call that a super-superiority complex. But now
I have the same rights as he does, and I do not want to be his maid
and have to fetch, serve, and obey his lordly orders. (female born
in 1943)

Second, those linked to marital infidelities: The theme of marital

infidelities is sounded loud and clear. I always knew he was being unfaithful to me, but I did not think it was very important, or,
perhaps, I did not really want to believe it. But now I feel very offended and hurt. I am unable to forgive and forget (female born in
1939). Often the husbands or the wifes genuine feelings become

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a central and constant problem of doubts, and in these relations

the doubts may destroy their everyday lives. In certain cases such
doubts have real foundations.
Third, the resentment is linked to a situation of forced competition with a mother-in-law (on either side), initiated by what is
thought of as her blind love for her offspring.
When we got married we lived with his parentshis kind and modest papa, and his mama (not a bad woman in general) who doted on
her son. She only paid attention to her little boy. She treated me as
some kind of good-for-nothing appendage to him, someone who was
always getting in the way and never did anything right. That was how
it went all the time, I always played second fiddle, she might not even
consult me or share anything with me, she would simply ignore me.
(female born in 1938)

Such a situation often leads to the formation of interpersonal

relations between husbands and wives that are characterized by
an explicitly pronounced asymmetry of control and supervision
reminiscent of relations between a willful child and a protective
parent.
All our lives my husband has been like a second child of mine. I have
to take care of everythingjob, home, the health of household members, the schooling and upbringing of our son, rest and recreation. His
mama left all of these cares to me as a legacy. And now everything
is still the same, unchanged, with the exception of our son, who lives
abroad. (female born in 1939)

Factors of an intimate nature are linked to sexual dispositions that

do not coincide. Our survey found that sex is an out-of-bounds topic
for elderly people. To talk about such things, in their opinion is
not fitting for people of our age. Discussions of the topic were
accompanied by significant verbal side-stepping and euphemism
that proved to be more grounds for lack of clarity than for a subject
to be examined. It is kept hidden in the depth of ones soul as a
secret about these relations, and anyone who talks a lot about it
clearly suffers from a complex or has something wrong with him,
although there may actually be problems (female born in 1938).
The men were much more likely to confine themselves just to the

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respectable version: there are no problems at all, this topic is

discussed only by someone who has problems, and we do not have
any (male born in 1945).
Personal characteristics of behavior, enthusiasms and interests
are relegated to the background and/or compensated for by other
things during the earlier stages and manifested in greater relief at
the later stage of life together: he hardly ever helps around the
house, he picks up all kinds of junk and brings it into the house,
he is just a loafer, goes around to see people and meet with his
friends, all she cares about are the grandchildren, that is all she
talks about, hes aggressive, he does not want quiet, he seeks
new sensations.
One important element consists of the models of relations
between married partners that were learned in the early stages
of socialization. These models represent an inseparable element
of background understanding (the concept of background understanding, or background, has been borrowed by the social sciences
from the terminology of gestalt psychology, and it signifies an
unintentional predisposition of perception, evaluation, and action
that is determined by the sociocultural context). Models learned
from childhood become cognitive guides of life.
In his family line all the males are tough, they have no emotions. In
our first yearswe were living with his familyI loved him with all
my heart, only he did not accept my love. That is how things went,
he always cut off all my strivings to have warmer relations. With no
carrot only the stick was left. (female born in 1939)

In the answers given by our respondents we can trace the mechanism by which the negatively connoted existential coordinates of
life (personal misery, alienation, and disruption of the forms of
existence) are passed down from parents to children, with an effect that possibly grows stronger. A child who is being raised in
a home that lacks interpersonal relations of genuine interest and
warmth, grows up having absolutely no understanding of love,
tenderness, closeness, and human warmth, and he passes this onto
his own offspring. A child who grows up in a family where harsh
treatment of the children has been an everyday practice is more

110 Russian Social Science Review

likely in the future to include aggression in his own repertoire of

behavioral models.
In the case in question, the married partners are in a state of categorical denial of the views, position, and preferences that proceed
from the other; they live and act on the reverse side of the kind of
order that correlates with mutual understanding and mutual support,
and this destroys relations of sympathy and concern. It has recently
been easy to find materials on the Internet about aggressiveness
and abuse in elderly married couples; these are reflected in different manifestations of physical, mental, including emotional and
verbal aggression, and financial abuse. Accepting abuse as a way
of resolving interpersonal conflicts leads to suffering and trauma,
pain, the violation of a persons rights, and a diminished quality
of life. It may be asserted, however, that at present the mass media
and the scientific literature in this country give no objective and
reliable information about the scale of this social evil. Let us also
note that gender relations in such a family reproduce the same pattern of inequality and the functionalist assignment of roles as in the
rest of normal society. Our survey revealed that despite constant
conflict situations, in the overwhelming majority of cases elderly
married partners continue to live together. A number of explanations for this are possible.
There is stereotyping linked to narrowed perceptions about the
repertoire of possible actions. There is a kind of socially approved
algorithm in place, namely, that it is necessary to continue living
together, there is no other alternative. In the public consciousness,
divorce in old age is looked down upon. Divorce is considered
indecent and inappropriate, which indirectly confirms the low
status of the elderly, who are denied the right of choice when it
comes to family and marriage. A person that age has to fit into
the image prescribed by public opinion, and this greatly limits
his or her freedom. The only socially approved way of elderly
peoples social positioning involves their having to retain their
marital status.
I have known this married couple since I was a child, they are friends
of my parents. Not everything in their life runs smoothly. But so what?

Russian Social Science Review 111

That is not a reason to get divorced, something should have been

changed earlier. It should not even be talked about now. Imagine getting divorced in old age. It would be odd, everyone would think they
are senile. (female born in 1964)

There is catastrophism, the intensification of fears. A feeling

of not being protected, of insecurity, a fatal threat. In feelings of
catastrophism the characteristics of the gender-based life and activity of an elderly married couple are manifested. First, the death of
one of the partners is an extreme situation that requires considerable effort to emerge from. At the same time, the gender-based
trajectories by which to escape from the situation of the death of
a spouse differ considerably. A man who is sixty years old has
many more opportunities to remarry than does a woman who is
fifty years old. According to the results of sociological surveys,
men who have become widowed at a late age very rarely remain
single. Either they die soon after the death of their wife or they
find themselves a female friend and assistant. Second, it is also
necessary to take into account the presence of a crisis situation,
a crisis of old age that is linked to retirement, to a change in the
repertoire of roles, a shift of aspirations from social status to life
experience and moral qualities. At the same time, the personality
becomes more anxious. Moreover, male and female crises are of
different natures. For a woman, the main difficulty concerns her
looks, a loss of attractiveness, a transition to ordinary workday
life without male attention. For a man the biggest difficulty is in
how to deal with the responsibility that comes with mature age.
There is the presence of universal indulgencechildren and
grandchildren, the degree of incorporation in the family environment, and the unwillingness to part with possessions.
It is sad to lose what you have gained with so much hard workan
apartment, a dacha, a car, and so on. If you get divorced you will have
to divide up all of your possessions in some way, and now you can no
longer afford to buy anything. Plus, both your children and grandchildren will judge you. (male born in 1944)

The results break down the stereotyped perceptions of elderly

married couples as families that no longer experience any internal

112 Russian Social Science Review

dynamic or intrigues of interpersonal relations, whose members are

just living out their days. Our study has brought to light a whole
panorama of very vital, touching, and at times even tragic interpersonal relations between married partners. The value of married
life, marital support in the late stages of paths in life, has a special
significance and a specific character. Married life is one of the key
values in late age, one of the most basic agents of sociopsychological support and help. We have also found that marital support
positively influences processes of rehabilitation of various groups
of elderly people who are ailing, processes by which those who
are recuperating become adapted, and that improve their ability to
cope with situations of stress. Undoubtedly, the presence of a broad
spectrum of individual differences in relations between married
partners at the gerontological state of their life necessitates more
detailed sociopsychological support for elderly families, including, among other things, the development and implementation of a
training program that is existentially oriented in order to create the
necessary conditions for improving relations within the family.
Note
1. Recently, in Russia, as, incidentally, in many other countries, there has
been a dramatic rise in the number of elderly married couples who have decided
to dissolve their marriage officially. One cause of divorce in marriages that have
existed for a long time under the conditions of Russia is the economic factor. It
has been found that elderly people get divorced in order to apply for a subsidy
to pay for their housing. See www.chrab.chel.su/archive/03 06 08/2/A127559.
DOC.html; www.kadis.ru/daily/index/html?id=48547; http://pressa.irk.ru/number1/2006/42/007001.html; http://kp.ru/daily/24088/319959/; and www.kuzrab
.ru/publics/index.php?ID=8528.

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3. Shakhmatova, N.V. Sotsiologiia pokolenii. In Pokolencheskaia organizatsiia sovremennogo rossiiskogo obshchestva, ed. A.D. Krakhmaleva,
p. 31. Saratov, 2000.

Russian Social Science Review 113

4. Shteinberg, I.E., and E.M. Kovalev. Kachestvennye metody v polevykh

sotsiologicheskikh issledovaniiakh. Moscow: Logos, 1999.
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