THE SPOUSE'S SOCIAL EXPERIENCE OF HIS OR HER PARTNER'S CANCER

Our study aims to analyze the couple's social experience of dealing with male and female cancer. The aim is to show how gender relations are played out when one of the spouses has cancer. From a gender perspective, this research is carried out with couples treated at the Oran-Algeria oncology department (CEA d'El Hassi). In addition to participant observations during consultations, the materials for this study are based on twelve semi-structured interviews conducted individually with both spouses, including two interviews with an engaged couple. The interviews took place before and after the chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions, as well as after remission. The singular points of view of the interviewees show that the spouses' experience is permeated by social relationships. These play a major role on both the patient's and the partner's side, and depend essentially on the quality of the couple's previous relationships and the severity of the cancer. If the husband is ill, the wife becomes the main source of support for her husband in managing his illness. She has a moral and social obligation to her sick husband. The man becomes the focus of all her concerns and attentions. When the wife is ill, social relations are ambivalent. Sometimes, the wife is confronted with fears of divorce or abandonment, as the man refuses to accept the idea of having a sick wife with cancer. Our study focuses on the social experience of couples in dealing with male and female cancer, in this case breast cancer and prostate cancer, in the Algerian context. Cancers are a public health problem. They represent a real phenomenon that is constantly evolving in the world and in our country. Based on the 2016 cancer registers in Algeria, Zitouni and CherfBouzida (2018), show an evolution from 46000 new cases in 2016 to 55584 in 2020, 61133 in 2022 and finally they estimate a number of 70556 in 2025. The onset of cancer alters the balance of a patient's family and marital organization. It is likely to generate many uncertainties, anxieties and difficulties, which the patient will seek to manage by mobilizing various resources available in his or her environment [Carricaburu, Ménoret, 2004, p.117]. Negative representations are prevalent around cancer pathology, « which plays a part in the way spouses will react to the disease and influence their experience of it » [Derbez & Rollin, 2016]. Chronic illness forces sufferers to develop management skills, such as the support often provided by women, as a determining factor in the experience of illness.