The process of construction and formation of maternal identity in early marriage: A Grounded Theory Study

The present study was purposed to study the construction and formation process of maternal identity in early marriage based on the grounded theory.The statistical population included the female who married under the age of 15.The sample embraced 23 female based on the participants' saturation principle whom were selected via purposive sampling procedure.This study was with qualitative approach and grounded theory oriented.The data were collected through a semi-structured interview with open end questions and analyzed and categorized based on the grounded theory of Strauss and Corbin approach.After examining and categorizing the findings in three stages of open, central and selective coding, 350 open codes, 48 sub-categories and 11 main categories were obtained.Results of the research showed that maternal identity construction and formation process was conceptualized based on life without childhood identity and individual and cultural factors of marriage as causal conditions, social pressure leading to unavoidable life choices and basic challenges and problems as background conditions, mother learning patterns and acute crises in joint life as intervention conditions, changing the life path, incompatible problem solving and adaptive problem solving were as strategies and motherhood style and their life satisfaction and future outlook as a consequence.