The aims of the present study were to design a questionnaire to assess specific personal and social issues of never-married women over 35 in Iran and to calculate the psychometric properties of such a questionnaire. Overall, the psychometric properties are very satisfactory. The final version consists of 15 items, loading on the following three factors: "Emotional-burden", "Sexual needs" and "Stigma”. These factors are considered now in turn.
The first factor was labeled “Emotional burden” and covers emotional issues such as the feeling of loneliness, experiencing a monotonous life, reporting lower self-confidence, or regret of not being or getting married. Thus, not being married appears to be considered a personal disadvantage. Not surprisingly, studies from Saili (2018) and Himawan (2018) reported similar patterns of experiences (23, 24). To summarize, in our opinion, the factor “Emotional burden” reflects well what never-married women over 35 are experiencing in Iran. In studies conducted on never-married women in different countries, the psychological need is very strong (25, 26). Psychological needs were the first theme in the qualitative phase of the present study, too.
Next, as reported in Table 3, the item “I feel free and comfortable in life”, did negatively load on this factor. Indeed, not being a married woman aged 35 and more may also yield advantages (27). On the other hand, some studies have shown that being single can lead to academic and professional advancement and therefore a sense of freedom and independence in women (28), which is one of the features of this dimension and themes in the qualitative phase.
The second factor refers to never-married women’s sexual needs. Human beings are basically social beings (29), and sexuality is an integral part of psychological health in an adult’s life (30–33). The sexual activity of couples usually signifies exclusivity, intimacy, and bond-reinforcing behavior, and sexual impairment is regarded as distressing and disturbing both for the individual quality of life.
The study showed that the sexual need in single women is not only not ignored but also remains one of the most important needs. This dimension forms one of the themes of “psychological vacuum” in the qualitative phase. Items in this dimension refer to things like getting nervous because of not responding to this need, worrying about having sex, needing a way to satisfy the sexual need, and easy control of sexual need. The response to sexual needs varies in different contexts according to religion and culture. In communities where having sex before marriage is not prohibited, it is more easily met (34). But in Muslim societies like Iran where having sex before marriage is legally and religiously forbidden, response to sexual need causes anxiety and even is seen as guilt (35). In the WHO questionnaire, which was designed to assess the sexual-reproductive health needs of young people, dimensions include such as the type of sexual intercourse, awareness of condom use (8). But in the present study, due to religious context, questions like those were not asked. On the other hand, one of the items on the scale refers to easy control of sexual need. Sometimes religious beliefs are so strong in some single people that they come to terms with their sexual needs and find it easy to control. Sometimes the ease of controlling sexual desire is related to aging, and the lack of a person to meet sexual needs (36).
Stigma is the third factor. This issue was appeared the second theme in the qualitative stage (reform of culture and society). Stigma refers to way of a specific cultural, social, and religious context may way the status of never-married women aged 35 and older. Such stigma unfavorably impacts a woman’s psychological health. This dimension is also completely dependent on culture and societies. For example, in Asian countries such as Malaysia or Iran never-married women from called Andartu (“Old Virgin”) and Torshideh (“The Expired”) (27), while to our understanding, never-married women living in modern European or American countries are not labeled in a dismissing fashion. In contrast, the Iranian culture considers marriage as an important social and cultural set-up; accordingly, never-married women over 35 might be viewed with suspicion (37, 38), as they do not follow the social rules, and as they challenge social contracts (24). Complementarily, the social status of a married woman is not put into question (10). Due to this prevailing view in the society, in the qualitative study, most of the never-married women mentioned issues such as discomfort from the society's point of view than other aspects of social life such as social security or having social status.
With regard to the psychometric properties of the present scale, statistical indices showed satisfactory validity and reliability. As described in much more detail before, the procedure to design the items and to thoroughly test their psychometric properties have been carefully performed, while rigorously following the standard procedures. Given this, we hold that the present questionnaire is a valuable tool to thoroughly assess the psychological state of never-married women aged 35 and higher in Iran.
The next step would be to translate the measure in further languages, to test the psychometric properties of these measures and to perform cross-cultural comparisons.