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The Blind Attitude´s to Marriage and Parenthood.
BENEDIKTOVÁ, Andrea
The presented thesis focuses on the issue of partnership and parenthood of blind people. Specifically, the attitudes blind people have to the institution of marriage, and how they view on parenthood. It should be noted that this issue is not much considered or dealt by the experts in our society. The thesis is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part, while the theoretical part is further divided into 5 sections. The first section deals with the family as a whole, describes what a family really is, and how it is defined by various experts. It also discusses the issues of family trends, which are currently very frequent in our society. In this part, there is also considered the changing role of men and women throughout history to the present day. The second section is focused on partnership, specifically on marriage and cohabitation. The third section is devoted to the problems of the partnership of partially sighted people. The fourth part describes, who a blind man is according to the experts, and here is also the outline of the aetiology of visual disability, and the possible perception of disability depending on when it arose, and whether the disability is congenital or acquired during life. The fifth and final section of the theoretical part deals with parenting of the blind people, it sets out the relationship between the parent and a sighted child, and also the particularity of baby care. The empirical part has one main, and two secondary objectives. The main objective is to find out what approach do blind people take to marriage and parenthood. The first side issue is to find out what opinions the blind people have about partnership, if they prefer the form of marriage or other family coexistence, and if yes, which it is. The second objective was to identify if raising children is one of their life values, and what are their reasons for that. One of the research questions was determined here, which should help to reveal whether blind people perceive their disability as an obstacle to the family formation and the subsequent upbringing of children. For the research there were used the qualitative research strategy, the method of interviewing, and the technique of semi-standardized interview. The interviews were made with five communication partners, who were chosen by goal-directed selection. They were all blind people, who still don´t have a family, aged between 20 to 30 years. The interviews were always held with the consent of the communication partners, and in a prearranged and quiet place. The qualitative research investigations lead to interesting findings. The research revealed that only two of the five communication partners prefer the institution of marriage, since they assume that the bond of partnership between two people will be stronger, and the likelihood of their relationship´s end will be smaller, since divorce is a more complex process than the breakup of two unmarried people. These two communication partners, however, want to cohabitate for some time before the conclusion of a marriage, and try living together. The remaining three communication partners prefer long-term unmarried cohabitation without marriage. They argue that marriage is actually irrelevant for the happy partnership. Using the research, it was also found that raising children is very important for the full life of three of the five communication partners. For one of them, it is important to find a life partner, and another one communication partner states that the question of raising children is still left open for her. A very positive finding is that none of the communications partners perceive their disability as an obstacle to start a family, and only one is not completely sure that he would be able to take full care of their child.
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