Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This Master's thesis is based on a qualitative study which aimed to understand the perspectives of married male and female law students and the ways in which they managed the interaction between law school and family life. The data was gathered from in-depth interviews with 23 married law students at an urban university. The spillover model was used to address both how being married impacts students' school experiences, as well as to look at how the law school experience influences students' families. In an analysis of marriage-to-school spillover, the married law students reported feeling that they were having a non-normative law school experience as a result of their marital and parenthood statuses and they often compared their experiences to that of an "unmarried other" group of more traditional students. In an analysis of school-to-marriage spillover, students reported various types of strains that resulted from missing out on parts of a perceived normal married life as a result of the demands of law school. Several key differences were noted between the ways male and female students handled the often competing demands of marriage, children, and law school. The implications for the families as well as for legal education are discussed.

The profession of Psychology in post-apartheid South Africa has been dominated by women, despite attempts to address issues of equity, access and redress in recruitment and training. Certain obstacles to entering the profession, that may be specifically relevant to men, included the longevity and cost of training; the notion that Psychology is a ‘woman’s profession’; and the appeal of more lucrative job opportunities. Women, on the other hand, were often encouraged to enter female-dominated professions such as Psychology and financial support either from one’s family or an economically-independent partner facilitates the pursuit of this career trajectory. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of married females who were embarking on postgraduate study. Using semi-structured interviews, eight married female participants currently enrolled in Professional Masters programmes provided in-depth information on why they took on the dual adjustment of marriage and postgraduate study and what were the challenges and benefits associated with this process. Thematic content analysis was used to interpret these accounts which revealed that the dating phase of relationships often concluded as postgraduate study commenced due to the longevity of the study trajectory. To address the accompanying relationship insecurity, marriage was idealised as offering enhanced security and stability. Despite the notion that Masters and marriage would complement each other in order to overcome the difficulties of marriage and postgraduate study, a blurring of boundaries was experienced between the perceived challenges and benefits as the idealised complementarity was not actualised. Using feminist theory, the study added value to debates on the perpetuating influence of chauvinistic notions regarding marriage and career development for women inherent in the family life cycle theory, as well as explored the implications of the “feminisation” of the profession of Psychology on recruitment, training and future practice of female Psychologists.