Abstract
Intersectionality espouses progressive societal dominant discourse norms that describe persons as individuals connected to a variety of social locations (e.g., gender, socioeconomic status [SES], ethnicity, sexual orientation, spirituality, vocation). This may not resonate with the cultural ideals of collectivist and bicultural communities, who are better understood when considered in context of both dominant and local intersectionality discourses. This retrospective interpretive thematic analysis examines the lived experiences of Chinese American Christian couples as they negotiate identity and roles in early parenthood. Findings indicate that the intersection of collectivist group identity markers, cultural values and spirituality guides how partners understand identity and negotiate relationship roles in marriage. Couples’ varied responses to cross-cultural and dominant discourse norms and other social location factors (e.g., vocation and SES) also account for individual differences. Implications for Chinese American Christian couples, and for the application of intersectionality theory to diverse populations, are discussed.
Intersectionality as a theoretical framework has been touted as the “future of mainstream family science” (Few-Demo, 2014, p. 169). Instead of using single-axis or additive models of social location (e.g., gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, spirituality, nationality), intersectionality researchers make visible how social location discourses intersect and co-construct experiences of identity in relationship (George & Stith, 2014; Shields, 2008; Seedall et al., 2014 ). Intersectionality theory also has deep roots in social justice (Crenshaw, 1989), facilitating researchers’ ability to name and critique the interlocking structures of social power and oppression that shape the lived experience of marginalized persons, including the dyadic union of partners of color (Hankivsky et al., 2012; Shields, 2008). Because the construction of couple’s identity continues to be a challenge that partners carry forward, this study examines the complexities of couple’s relationship within ethnicity, gender, social class, culture and spiritual identities. Interaction of identities within the couple’s relationship is explained by intersectionality. Thus, the present study on Chinese American Christian couples adds to the growing family sciences literature on relational intersectionality and underscores the importance of considering how multiple social location discourses inform how couples negotiate their relationship (Ferree, 2010; Shields, 2008).
Chinese American Christian Couples in Social Context
Chinese American couples navigate multiple social location discourses that inform identity. According to dominant discourse, Chinese Americans hold “multi-minority status” in American society (Navarrete & Jenkins, 2011). They may move between feeling racially invisible alongside other persons of color and being confronted by racist stereotypes such as “model minority” or “forever foreigner” (Liang et al., 2004; Tuan, 1998). Marginalization and discrimination may echo historic oppression from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and other anti-Chinese sentiments (Lee, 2002). Social justice efforts might focus on increasing Chinese Americans’ visibility, racial and gender equality, and opportunity for mobility in society. Chinese American men may be perceived simultaneously as effeminate and domineering (Chua & Fujino, 1999) and Chinese American women as exotic, primitive, and submissive (Khoo, 2007). The intersection of their societal stereotypes related to gender and race may have an influence on the formation of power imbalance in couples’ relationship.
Additionally, Chinese American couples are also socialized into Chinese collectivist discourse through their families of origin. Like dominant discourse, collectivist discourses also assign meaning to social locations, such as gender, age, race/ethnicity, and class (Oyserman et al., 2002). Influenced by Confucianism, traditional Chinese values confer privilege according to hierarchical relationships and patrilineal families, prescribing specific ways for individuals to fulfill social roles to preserve social order, group cohesiveness, and harmony (Kim et al., 2005). Identity is assigned and maintained through social alignment with family and cultural group norms. As such, the social justice values described above may hold less weight for some, when compared to collectivist aspirations toward social harmony, honor, and intergenerational family stability (Hsiung & Ferrans, 2007; Quek et al., 2010).
The interplay of dominant and collectivist discourses is especially pronounced for Chinese American children of immigrants, whose family migration history and struggle for belonging are key to their negotiation of identity (Navarrete & Jenkins, 2011; Ting-Toomey, 2015). Thus, the Chinese American immigrant families have to navigate loss of extended family, the disruption of traditional gender and economic patterns among couples, parent-child role reversals, and felt the disconnection or tension across the generations (ChenFeng et al., 2015; Chun & Akutsu, 2003). Many Chinese American families actively search for a new cultural home to support identity and relationships (Navarrete & Jenkins, 2011).
The Christian church is one such cultural home for Chinese Americans who are part of the 42% of Asian Americans self-identifying as Christian (ChenFeng, 2018). Chinese Americans who join Chinese Christian churches may appreciate belonging to a “surrogate family” that parallels collectivist cultural networks of kinship (Guo, 1995) and allows for transmission of cultural as well as spiritual identity discourses across the generations (Cao, 2005; ChenFeng, 2015; Lim, 2017). Yang (1998) commented on the particular appeal of conservative Christianity for Chinese immigrants experiencing cataclysmic shifts in Asia, to preserve traditional morals and a sense of certainty from which to reconstruct a Chinese identity in the United States. At the same time, Christian spirituality and the church can also function as a “third space” from which to discover new ways of understanding identity and relationship, as well as build bridges to American values and society (Chen, 2006; ChenFeng, 2015). Chinese Christian churches often mirror dynamics of intergenerational connectedness and conflict within family systems (ChenFeng, 2015; Lim, 2017) and reflect the influence of both dominant and collectivist discourses (ChenFeng, 2018).
So, the present study uses intersectionality to highlight the multiple identities of partners from Chinese American Christian descent, to emphasize how these identities overlap with and intersect with each other from a relational focus.
Methodology
A qualitative research study (Quek et al., 2010) examined how Chinese American couples negotiated gender roles in early parenthood, to illuminate how couples managed gender hierarchies between collectivist traditional norms and egalitarian ideals of the dominant culture. A re-examination of this sample with an intersectional lens expanded the examination of gender to also include spirituality, ethnicity, vocation, socioeconomic status (SES), individual qualities, and ability. In keeping with the original study, a social constructionist approach was used, which views identity, social roles and relational patterns as constructed through ongoing social interactions (Gergen, 2009). Our present article focuses on the following questions.
How do various social location identities intersect to influence Chinese American Christian couples’ ideals and strategies for negotiating partner roles and their relationships?
How do collectivist discourses enrich our understanding of the course of marriage and family for Chinese American Christian couples?
We initiated a secondary analysis of original study, with the intent of augmenting gender-only exploration with a relational intersectionality lens that expanded the interest to multiple social location markers. By expanding upon the ethnic, spiritual, and gender particularities of this sample, the study explored how social locations intersect and influence couples’ relationships. We engaged in interpretive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019) and used a constructionist perspective to understand how participants narrated their world and assigned meanings to their identities and relationships.We acknowledged that the researchers’ identities and interactions also influence how data are viewed and interpreted (Gergen, 2009).
Participants
The original study’s participants were as follows:
Twelve couples resided in Southern California and eight in Seattle, Washington. All of the husbands are Chinese American. One wife is Korean American and another is Japanese American. Twenty-one are adult children of immigrants (1.5 generation), 16 are second generation, and 3 are third generation. Consistent with the literature, the sample is highly educated, with all holding at least a bachelor’s degree. Most work in professional occupations, such as engineers, dentists, pharmacists, physicians, teachers, therapists, etc. Average length of marriage is six years. Fourteen of the couples have one child; six have two. Ten of the wives work full-time outside the home, four work part-time or are students, and six are stay-at-home mothers. All of the husbands work full-time. The mean ages were 35.1 years for men and 34.3 years for women (Quek, et al., 2010, p. 362).
Participants were recruited through snowball and network purposive sampling techniques. Referrals from any one snowball chain were limited to avoid oversampling from a particular network. Participants were eligible to participate if at least one partner was Chinese American and the couple was married, with children 5 years or younger. Although not a study requirement, all participants were in their first marriage and identified as heterosexual, Christian, and affiliated with a Christian church.
Description of Study Participants.
Data Collection and Analysis
In the original study, data was collected by the first author using semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and transcribed. Questions covered brief history of relationship (e.g., how couples met and why they chose to marry), relationship ideology (i.e., what, to you, constitutes a “good” relationship? How would you determine if a relationship was fair to both persons? Is equality important to you? Why or why not?), relationship structures and behaviors (time spent, division of responsibilities and emotional work, power dynamics and authority), and decision-making and conflict resolution.
During secondary analysis, we reviewed interview transcripts retrospectively. Confidentiality was maintained throughout both the original data and the retrospective analysis with the use of pseudonyms and participant codes. While anonymity could not be guaranteed in the original study, as the participants met face-to-face with the first author, subsequent researchers in the current study had no access to identifying information.
We used interpretive thematic analysis to identify relational intersectionality patterns among participants who share similar background and experiences (Braun & Clark, 2006, 2019). This process involved reading and coding transcripts, brainstorming groupings, and confirming themes that shed light on shared meanings and constructs. To begin analysis, each researcher reviewed the transcripts, familiarizing or soaking themselves in the data (Creswell, 2014). After the second author noted social locations referenced by couples through line-by-line coding of 50% of transcripts, we met several times to compare tentative themes.
It was noted that codes of cultural values (values related to family generational transmission and cultural identity negotiation) and spirituality (spiritual beliefs, community affiliation, service) appeared to organize the meaning of other social location codes (gender, race/ethnicity, generational status, vocation, SES, individual qualities, and ability). These codes marked the influence of collectivist discourses on relational intersectionality, described in greater detail in the first theme: “Markers of collectivist discourse: Cultural values and spirituality.” Through collaborative dialogue, we also identified themes of relational intersectionality observed in our participant sample: “Collectivist cultural values and spirituality preserve traditional gender roles,” “Collectivist cultural values and spirituality bring conflict to traditional gender roles,” “Cross-cultural and dominant discourses transform traditional gender roles,” and “Vocation and SES challenge traditional gender roles for wives.”
To address research trustworthiness and credibility, we heeded guidance by Morrow (2005) to ensure researcher reflexivity, adequacy of data, and appropriate data interpretation. Our subjectivity was acknowledged and bias was kept in check through ongoing reflexivity and dialogue and consultation with existing literature (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Data adequacy was met by using original study transcripts as data for secondary analysis. Finally, appropriateness of data interpretation was met by the first and third authors checking codes and ensuring saturation of themes with the remaining transcripts, and by using group consensus on major decisions about how to report findings. Each researcher confirmed the final themes and felt heard and respected during the process.
Researchers as Instruments
Demographics, life experiences, and values of the researchers may influence the quality of the research (Hill et al., 2005). Social constructionist approaches also acknowledge that the identities and interactions of researchers, in addition to that of participants, influence how data are collected and interpreted during analysis. Discussion about the researchers’ intersectionality were held throughout this study’s research process.
The first author is a Christian Singaporean-born cisgender woman living in the United States. She comes from a middle-class and urban background. As a married woman with a professional career, she has increased awareness of marital dynamics within overlapping social locations. This intersectional study is a progression of her interest in exploring couples’ sociocultural beliefs around multiple social locations. The second author is a second-generation Chinese American Christian cisgender married female, born and raised middle class in the United States. She grew up in similar cultural and spiritual communities as this sample. Her research and clinical interests include bicultural identity and family dynamics, and in promoting a more nuanced integration of sociocultural context and spirituality in family theories and therapy. She has been a colleague of the first author for over four years at the writing of this article. The third author is a Euro cisgender female. She is from a middle class family and is a progressive Christian, heterosexual, and US born. She is an ally and advocate of social justice missions. She and the first author have been colleagues and friends for over 15 years. This research was born of conversation they had related to gender, diversity, and intersectionality. She acknowledges her white privilege and brackets her socialized behaviors of seeing data through an individualistic, Western lens.
The influence of our identities and social locations was significant to how data were perceived and interpreted in the collaborative process of data analysis and writing. Whereas we may have individually missed certain features of the data (e.g., markers of collectivist discourse, or couples’ agency to enact a preferred relational template), ongoing dialogues and group consensus on findings helped us to identify and articulate richer and more developed themes, and to better represent the participants in their own voice.
Findings
Research questions inquired about how various social location identities intersect to influence Chinese American Christian couples’ ideals and strategies for negotiating roles and relationship, with particular attention to collectivist discourses. Participants referenced several social location themes during interviews, including gender, ethnicity, cultural values, spirituality, vocation, SES, individual qualities, and ability. Among them, social locations of cultural values and spirituality were cited frequently by participants. These functioned as markers of collectivist discourses that organized the meaning of other social locations (e.g., gender and vocation), and intersected to guide couple relational templates and dynamics. Couples’ differences in relational intersectionality reflected variations in the intersection of collectivist cultural and spiritual discourses, exposure to cross-cultural and dominant discourses, and the influence of other social locations (e.g., vocation and SES). The diversity of collectivist-informed relational patterns suggested a fluid process by which couples evolve their roles and relationship within collectivist and dominant discourses over time.
Markers of Collectivist Discourse: Cultural Values and Spirituality
Participants frequently cited cultural values and spirituality as intersecting frameworks that helped them organize and interpret other social locations. We labeled these as collectivist discourses, because both cultural values and spirituality reflected the priority of group membership and alignment with collective standards when enacting individual and couple identity. Lindsay and Tom served as an example. Their interlocking social locations of being Chinese American and Christian positioned them to affiliate with the same reference Christian community. In describing how they met and were attracted to one another, they used group-oriented terms rather than individual-oriented ones. Tom and Lindsay met through shared group experiences in choir and church gatherings. Tom was attracted to how Lindsay was dedicated to her friends “and to the kids she taught [at church] . . . even up until now when they are all grown up.” Lindsay was drawn to Tom’s patience in how “he treated women well . . . how he reacted to his mom and his sisters” and was willing to lead others by exemplifying service to the Christian community.
Furthermore, many couples commented explicitly on the central organizing dynamic that spirituality and cultural values served for their relationship compatibility. Seth commented that “having a common way of looking at things . . . is very important” and that he appreciated and considered it “vital” that he and his wife Lori share the same faith. Lori agreed with Seth and also thought it is important that they have similar cultural values and background.
Cultural values
Cultural values were considered from a multidimensional framework, acknowledging particular relevance of participants’ ethnic collectivist roots and family migration history, while also recognizing the fluid process by which couples negotiated culture through acculturation and participation in multiple interactive cultural contexts (Falicov, 1995). Additionally, we attended to how individuals and couples were not simply passive enactors of inherited cultural values, but also actively interpreting and constructing cultural values through their social relationships (Krause, 1995).
Couples in this sample reflected their engagement with inherited Asian culture as a rich and dynamic construct anchored in partners’ race/ethnicity and generational status, largely mediated through generational transmission of values from their families of origin. Inherited cultural values in turn influenced the enactment of other social locations, such as gender and household roles. Dave commented as follows: I think [gender] almost completely dictates my viewpoint . . . I’m the head of the household . . . and just the way I was brought up with my dad working and my mom being at home. You’re a little more like your parents than you really want to admit . . . so I think it’s a big factor in how I want to make sure she’s taken care of [by me].
For Shelley and Rand, Shelley commented that her expectations that Rand is the “head of the household” and she is the “supportive wife” were driven largely by collectivist cultural values.
Spirituality
All couples identified as Christian and referenced spirituality as influential for their relationship patterns. Spirituality was less frequently described in terms of a personal relationship to God, and more so in terms of faith community membership and shared belief systems. Melanie stated that for her and Rick, “One thing we do have in common is our faith . . . an aspect that was very important, because I wasn’t interested in dating a non-Christian at that time, and I don’t think he was.” Kit and Jim believed their shared spirituality was the primary strength in their relationship that has allowed them to stay committed, despite marital struggles. Kit discussed the importance of spirituality: “we both . . . believe in the power of God . . . because of God we are together, we are still together. I think that is the reason why . . ..” Jim agreed that “[he] is glad she’s a Christian . . . if she wasn’t a Christian, it would be even harder for me.” These examples were consistent with a collectivist-framed understanding of self in community.
All participants described spiritual beliefs as influential in guiding relational patterns for everyday life. Eileen commented that “[spirituality] impacts a lot . . . I used to attend a Bible study when the kids were smaller and that helped me a lot to reevaluate my ways.” Additionally, participants also described spirituality in terms of the importance of community. Eileen’s husband Kyle shared: “Our church has a lot of opportunities for people to minister to and meet others in the same faith . . . and the activities that I decided to attend strengthen [my] faith and get [me] more focused.” Finally, some couples highlighted spirituality as directly guiding their sense of life vocation. Kenneth commented on how it was the fact that Ja-Hye shared his same “life ministry . . . someone to work with career and college people” and was actively pursuing this focus that he began to pray and consult with others about seriously considering a committed relationship with her.
Relational Intersectionality Couple Themes
For the majority of couples interviewed, cultural value and spirituality frames supported a traditional relational paradigm in which husband performs the role of head of household and breadwinner, and wife performs the supportive partner and primary child caregiver role. In couples where this traditional template played out, male partners generally were employed full time out of a desire to provide financially for their families, whereas female partners sought to manage the home, especially in the domains of childcare and emotional attunement and nurturing for family members. However, the varied ways that collectivist discourses of cultural values and spirituality influenced relational patterns showcased the diversity of ways partners actively negotiated their roles and couple relationship. This section described some of these different ways couples expressed relational intersectionality.
Collectivist cultural values and spirituality preserve traditional gender roles
Several couples who upheld a traditional gender role pattern did so by explicitly acknowledging their use of different criteria than the individualist dominant discourses to frame their self-understanding and relationship. Dan described faith as playing a “major role” in defining the marital relationship, in that “she takes care of our child; I support and provide for the family” and went on to say the following: Even though roles have kind of been different over the generations, especially here in America . . . we’re not offended to have these types of roles. I don’t think it’s meant to degrade women, because that’s what seems to come out now; being a housewife is not a respectable occupation, it’s not really a job . . . I think our faith kind of says this is the right way to do it and it’s okay. Not only is it okay, but it’s recommended. I think we find comfort in that.
Dan’s wife Erin agreed: “There’s security in our relationship because we have made that commitment and that commitment stands before God; we are accountable to him. [Faith] is a major role in our relationship and in our parenting attitude and thoughts about parenting.”
Relatedly, several couples tended to push back on the language of “fairness” in couple’s shared responsibility when asked to comment on this aspect of their marital relationship. In support of the traditional gender roles, Dawn, who gave up her full-time job so that her husband Dave could give his undivided focus on his job and not having to worry about the home front, commented as follows: I don’t think the word “fair” is a good word in marriage; nothing can be completely fair . . .. When I think about it being fair, it just creates more problems. It is better to think [about] what [I can] contribute to the relationship and what role [I am] supposed to take to make it a better relationship. Yeah, so I don’t know if fair would be the word to use.
Collectivist cultural values and spirituality bring conflict to traditional gender roles
Some participants reported that the intersection of cultural values and spirituality challenged traditional gender roles. In these instances, cultural and spiritual frames created internal and relational tension that had to be actively negotiated in couples’ decisions. Erin narrated an apparent tension between cultural and spiritual templates related to motherhood that richly illustrated her internal negotiation process. She shared the following: I always wanted to be a pastor’s wife and a mother, a stay-at-home mom . . . it’s like a calling, because that’s what my mom was, a model for me, and I think it’s an honor to be a mother. I never imagined I would not be a mother . . . [but I felt] I had to choose between the vocation call to be a full-time missionary [spiritual frame] and being a mother with a child [cultural frame] . . . because all the missionaries that go overseas don’t have kids . . . and if they have kids, they end up not go[ing].
Erin described how she actively negotiated the internal tension through a painful season of struggle with God. First, Erin felt challenged by God to “give up” her desire to be a mother out of greater love for him. Next, Erin related how she actively decided to trust God with her motherhood desires. Later, Erin was encouraged by Christian missionaries to reframe her trust in God as sharing her desire to conceive, trusting that God could bless them with children, and believing God could sustain them even if faced with future loss. It was in this season that Erin and Dan conceived their firstborn son. Erin’s narrative showed that her spiritual and cultural templates were formative and had to be actively negotiated when perceived to conflict.
Other couples referenced spiritual templates that they felt challenged to perform in their marriage, due to differing spiritual interpretations of how to enact gender roles. For example, Kit and Jim shared about being “constantly in argument” about their views of leadership between husband and wife that manifested in childrearing and other major domains. Jim referenced how “the Bible says . . . men should love their wives and wives submit to their husbands” and how “we’re always waiting for each other to do the first step . . . she’s waiting for me to love her, and I’m waiting for her to submit to me . . . in that way, it doesn’t really work.” Kit reflected: I know I’m supposed to submit, but I also know that there is another verse that says we submit to one another. The husband is the leader . . . I feel like maybe I can have the chance to verbalize what my thoughts are before we make the decision . . . if I feel like I’m being heard then, and Jim decides his viewpoint, then I usually have no problems submitting at all.
Kit and Jim revealed through further probing that underlying disagreements about dynamics of power were more so at the heart of these conflicts. Jim admitted that he can be “chauvinistic” and likes to have power, but that “it doesn’t work because [Kit] has a lot of her own desires and opinions . . . whatever I say, she says no.” Kit affirmed that at least Jim knows he wants power, which “makes [her] hopeful that he will let go of some of this power sometime.” Yet Kit expressed her objection to Jim assuming more decision-making power because he is the primary breadwinner, as this “makes [her] want to do things secretly without letting him know.”
Cross-cultural and dominant discourses transform traditional gender roles
While many couples patterned their roles and vocation after traditional Chinese collectivist norms and Christian beliefs, some couples adopted new templates based on cross-cultural and dominant discourse patterns they encountered. Lori and Seth illustrated how family of origin generational transmission helped them break away from typical cultural norms. Lori joked that Seth cleans the house while she’s at work, “which is kind of abnormal for an Asian guy.” She believed it is because “his mom made them do. . . clean the bathroom, and like his dad, his mom doesn’t even iron. His dad does all the ironing.” Seth added the following: I think people’s expectations [for the relationship] are driven on what was modeled for them . . . my father pitched in and helped. My dad was not the one who was this stereotypical Asian husband who doesn’t do anything . . . after work, he would come home, and would assist with childrearing in terms of helping us with our homework and putting us to sleep.
Some partners purposely sought new cultural templates due to perceived weaknesses in what their family of origin modeled. Ja-Hye explains how her distaste for her family’s “very strong hierarchical” and “male-dominated” pattern, where her father participated very little in household chores, and her mother was “working kind of double,” drove her to actively avoid marrying a Korean man, and to be open to Kenneth, who is Chinese American. As with the case of Seth, however, Kenneth noted that his active participation in household chores was less shaped by Chinese culture, and more by what he saw modeled in his family of origin, being raised by a single father who had to do all the cooking and cleaning.
The contribution of generational status differences and acculturation to dominant discourse can be seen in couples such as Kyle and Eileen (a Chinese/Korean dyad). Kyle, a third-generation Chinese American, recalled how his parents negotiated their own language differences by speaking English at home, considered Kyle’s choice to “marry out” to “not be a big issue,” and modeled counter-cultural mutuality by sharing in household labor and childrearing. His wife Eileen, however, is a 1.5 generation Korean whose family speaks only Korean and models a traditional hierarchical division of labor. Eileen, who was concerned that her family would disapprove of her not marrying a Korean, joked that between their family of origin templates, she was happy to adapt to the way of Kyle’s family.
Still other couples explicitly departed from Asian collectivist values and incorporated dominant discourse values. Melanie joked: “Rick is about as white as he can get and still be Chinese.” Melanie and Rick, both third-generation Chinese Americans, saw their career choices as counter-cultural. Melanie worked in health education, where she did a lot of public speaking, and Rick worked as a business manager, rather than having a more conventionally Asian-American job, such as an accountant position. They also commented on their tendency to be vocal and confrontational as “very anti-Asian.” They noted that they were “not afraid to get something out and settle it,” and that “[they don’t] think any of their friends are like that.” Similarly, Kristy described the importance of her and Jim “[talking] and getting things out,” because of underlying values of open communication and mutual respect of individual differences. Kristy commented as follows: What I consider a fair relationship [is] if you get the opportunity to get your point across, or you have the opportunity to show what’s bothering you, or you have opportunities to enjoy doing what you enjoy doing . . . even if it could be different than the other person.
Vocation and SES challenge traditional gender role for wives
While couples cited cultural values and spirituality as central to their intentional attempts to negotiate their roles and relationship, social locations such as vocation and SES at times significantly impacted some couples’ gender role expression. Melanie commented that she worked in the public health field for about five years, during which time she “learned [that] the presence of a parent at home [makes] a big difference [in] the risk for a child to go off, wayward . . . or the wrong way . . . I knew that I wanted to stay home for simply that reason.”
Kyle described the importance of professional level in how he viewed partnership in marriage. He cited the fact that he and Eileen first met as CPA coworkers at the same professional level, influenced his sense of seeing her as an equal partner. When Eileen asked, “If I did not have my license, [would you] be totally different with me?” Kyle acknowledged that he might indeed have had different expectations concerning their contributions and partnership.
For other couples, the demands of financial needs influenced the wife to work instead of staying at home. Shelley stated that because she and her husband Rand did not have family in town, she remarked “I always have to be there to take care of the kid.” Nevertheless, she commented that “if [she] had a choice, [she] [would have wanted] to stay at home” but that she nevertheless continued to work because of the family’s financial needs. Kristy, a medical doctor, described how she made the difficult decision to change her job because of her child’s needs. She shared the following: I did that because there was no way that I could breastfeed her and go to three hospitals . . . answer phone calls every second or third weekend . . . it was a hard decision for me to change jobs because I was already very busy.
Kristy also commented about the influence of financial needs: With the new position, there was a higher chance of making more money. And now with a child and knowing how expensive college will be . . . we have to look ahead . . .. Before we had a child . . . we didn’t have certain worries. And now with the child, the priority is her.”
Summary
Participating couples drew on collectivist cultural values and spirituality to guide couple relationship templates. These cultural and spirituality frames typically reinforced uneven marital power dynamics. But exposure to cross-cultural and dominant discourse norms and to the influence of other social locations (vocation and SES) provided couples with opportunities to collectively reconstruct roles and practices in new ways. This analysis enriches our recognition of the fluidity of individual and couple negotiation processes in relational intersectionality, especially with respect to multiple social location discourses.
Discussion
This study, which explored relational intersectionality in Chinese American Christian couples, offers an interactional analysis on how collectivist and dominant discourses influence partners’ understanding of their identities and negotiation of their relationship. Couples’ frequent references to cultural values and spirituality frames, when describing gender roles and couple decisions, reflected the pressure to both conform and defy traditional gendered roles. This is consistent with collectivist priorities and Christian beliefs on individual alignment to communal roles and expectations where on the one hand, Chinese American wives supported the notion of male leadership, and on the other hand, they did not let go of shared decision making and mutuality, as noted by Quek et al. (2010). In clinical settings, it will be beneficial for therapists to assess the delicate balance of the “cultural trinity” of spirituality, collectivist values, and gender with their clients in therapy (Kimball & Knudson-Martin, 2002). The association of spirituality with collectivist discourse for this sample also may sensitize therapists to note that for some clients, spirituality is more tied to communally held beliefs and expressions, rather than to privatized individual experience.
Similar to dyadic studies conducted by Addison and Coolhart (2015) and Torge (2014), partners in this study described the influence of a multiplicity of social identities, articulating the multi-dimensional nature of personal identity and the complex interaction of multidimensional identities between partners. We could not find any context where couples interacted out of a single social identity; multiple layers of social identities were mutually intersecting and co-constructing of one another. As individuals, participants actively enacted gender roles within the hierarchical contexts of Chinese collectivist culture and Christian spirituality to create their own experiences. As couples, the integration of diverse cultural and spiritual intersections occurs within the dyadic process of the marital relationship. Consequently, such intersections may be turned into avenues for the couples to negotiate their role expectations and collaboratively to create space for reconstructing a more balance power dynamic between them. Deutsch and Gaunt’s (2020) study on the equally sharing couples suggested that the frequent day-to-day acts and decision processing between partners can add up to equality. Additionally, this finding is consistent with Bowleg and Bauer (2016), who suggested that an understanding of the intersectional phenomenon between marital couples includes the consideration of power relations and social locations.
The findings of this study support a social constructionist perspective for the recursive process of intersecting multiple social identities, demonstrating a dynamic interplay of cultural and spirituality frames in shaping couple relationships (Lorber, 2005). The process allows a relational shift from static prescribed hierarchical gendered roles to newly negotiated positions where couples learn how to mutually accommodate each other. Even though traditional collectivist cultural values and Christian spirituality are situated within hierarchical prescriptive ideals, most couples participated in a mutually shaping process that engaged multiple larger social discourses, resulting in a variety of relational dynamics. Couples in this sample found themselves managing competing ways of doing gender roles, which included reinforcing and preserving traditional roles, resolving conflicting roles, and transforming gender roles due to tension arising from the intersection of social identities. These opportunities for interaction led to re-negotiation within evolving roles and empowered couples to contend with the limits of culturally prescribed roles. At times, the traditional prescribed roles, which collectivist cultural norms require, permit, and inhibit, were in tension with the couple’s preferred ways. This tension drew some couples to recognize the complexity when intersecting individual and couple social locations. The interplay has resulted in various opportunities of negotiated roles tailored to the couples’ mutual needs for accommodating each other. This type of couple engagement reflects other research showing that these contemporary couples may unconsciously violating culturally prescribed roles and shifting to a relational expectation for mutual accommodation (Kusujiarti, 2020).
The study data are consistent with other research on couple relationships that indicate both the tenacity of a patriarchal system, in which husbands hold power and wives are largely excluded, as well as the dismantling of the same system by partners who challenge assumptions and deconstruct traditional power dynamics (Few-Demo et al., 2014; Quek & Knudson-Martin, 2008). In particular, collectivist cultural discourse that reinforces patriarchal structure and systemically disempowers wives is slowly eroding due to the dynamics of intersecting the partners’ multiple social identities. As such, many couples employ gender role flexibility to deal with relational tension, and engage new interactional templates offered by cross-cultural and dominant discourses. However, an exception is when couples’ cultural values and spirituality reinforce each other and together override any influence of individual preference or alternate couple templates; where relational or value tension is not felt, desired, or welcome, traditional gender roles tend to be preserved.
Clinical and Research Implications
The findings reveal the usefulness of a relational intersectionality lens for therapists wanting to attend to social location when developing a clinical conceptualization of couple dynamics and needs. This is in keeping with therapy approaches such as that of socio-emotional relationship therapy (SERT) that seeks to attune to sociocultural discourses that influence and interfere with mutually supportive couple dynamics (ChenFeng et al., 2017). Therapists can act as the broker to raise the topics surrounding the influence of gender, ethnicity, class, spirituality, and other cultural identities operating within the couple, in the family and community contexts. Where cultural values and spirituality intersect, there may be openings for therapists to encourage clients to engage in more complex thinking about issues, such as couples conflict surrounding loyalty to taken-for-granted traditions and values, internalized values, and experiences within family of origin, ethnic and spiritual communities. Because couples’ social identities shape their relationship, it is also imperative that therapists address their diverse identities and help clients navigate their ongoing influence in therapy.
This study also points to the importance of considering couples’ social identities from the standpoint of multiple cultural discourses that influence them, with special attention to group discourses that couples have internalized or intentionally chosen. This is especially pertinent when encouraging new relational templates to promote greater social justice for individual partners or for the couple in broader society. For example, some couples discussed their desire to align with traditional hierarchical gender roles, rather than seeking fairness and gender equality according to progressive social norms. This highlights how it is important for therapists and researchers not to assume that everyone seeks the same relational goals. This is particularly relevant when an intersectional location may be evaluated as disadvantaged in reference to one group, but as an advantage in another (Shields, 2008). It is important for therapists to help partners and couples create space to explore how preferred identities and relational templates can both match and differ from social expectations and ideals. This will also help partners and couples weigh social and personal costs of retaining or changing relational templates.
Limitations and Future Directions
The researchers recognize the limitations of secondary data analysis to explore a new set of research questions without the ability to ask new interview questions of participants or follow-up on newly provided answers. As such, codes from this study largely focus on how gender roles are impacted by other social locations, as gender was the focus in the original study design.
The researchers also acknowledge the fluidity and constructionist nature of identity, such that this sample, while comprising Chinese American Christian couples, should not be assumed to represent all who self-identify with these descriptors. Chinese Americans as a population represent a larger diversity of social locations (e.g., different generational statuses, political affiliations, spiritual beliefs, sexual orientations) and strategies for negotiating these influences on identity. Future research could involve applying a relational intersectionality approach to other couples who negotiate multiple social location discourses (e.g., Chinese American LGBTQ+ couples, interracial couples, other bicultural or collectivist cultural couples).
In conclusion, this study argues that a relational intersectionality understanding of couples has important implications for clinical practice and research. As seen in Chinese American Christian couples, the interplay between social identities surrounding collectivist cultural values and spirituality can result in something other than the simple tension of couples’ conflict. Such interplay may signify that the structures surrounding social identities either strengthen or weaken individuals in married relationships. These intersections may offer avenues for couples to demonstrate the co-construction of new forms of mutuality for supporting each other, enabling couples to enact strategies to change prescribed gender roles to preferred ones.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
