Accounting for Difference: Commuter Wives and the Master Narrative of Marriage

Abstract

This manuscript is one of many in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research on “Communication and Distance,” Volume 38, No. 1.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how, if at all, commuter wives reference the master narrative of marriage in discussing their own marriages. The personal narratives of 25 commuter wives who participated in focus groups and 49 commuter wives who participated in individual interviews were recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis of the transcripts in the interpretive tradition found that participants used “accounts” in the form of excuses and justifications to explain the difference of their own marriages from the dominant US master narrative of marriage.

Keywords:

• Commuter Marriage
• Distance Relationships
• Master Narrative
• Personal Narratives
• Account-making

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dawn O. Braithwaite, Chad McBride, Editors Laura Stafford and Erin Sahlstein, and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and other assistance in preparing this manuscript. This paper is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, which was funded by an American Fellowship Dissertation Grant from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. An earlier version of this paper was a Top Four paper in the Family Communication Division at the National Communication Association in Chicago, IL, November 2009.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karla Mason Bergen

Karla Mason Bergen is Assistant Professor of Communication at the College of Saint Mary