Consumption as a mechanism to compensate the loss of ownership of self among women after marriage: a life transition perspective

Abstract

It is not new and startling that Gender has been a point of debate across the globe in multiple setups, personal and professional. The transition a woman undergoes in her entire life has been tied to various consumption patterns and ideal consumption behaviors at every stage of development as a woman. (Kaplan,1987;Bordo,1993; Madaran,2000; Catterall, 2013). Given the developments globally beyond gender, few issues and cases remind us that the cultural and societal embodiment of what constitutes being a women remains a site to be contested. In societies undergoing modernity, how do women use consumption to negotiate the contrasting cultural values of tradition and modernity when their own Selves, bodies and lives are held to be sacred (Agnew, 1997; Mukherjee, 1983; Wadley, 1977)? Women are defined and located through social and moral parameters which serve as prominent markers of control and surveillance over their consumption choices. As Contested by the women who feel they have ownership over their bodies, lives and selves and haw they are perceived, versus how others, typically men, perceived the role of women and their lives. In the middle of this field lies the market, adapting, creating and nurturing change in an effort to open new market segments, opportunities and profit possibilities. Advertisers certainly require an in-depth understanding of how and why consumption systematically changes over consumers’ lifetimes (Harrison et al., 2011). The life cycle constitutes a key advertising concept that helps in exploring changes in consumers over time (Cornwell et al., 2006). As a multidisciplinary concept, the life cycle approach has significantly developed since its introduction in the marketing literature (Baer and Srnka, 2012). Advertisers seek the life cycle concept to study consumer needs and spending patterns. More recently, scholars call for an individual life course perspective in consumer research (Bailey et al, 2010). We observe the direction of empirical and theoretical research flexing from macro to a micro level and the stages of life (Murphy and Staples, 1979; Gilly and Enis, 1982; Du and Kamakura, 2006). And recent life cycle research in marketing has turned to the individual consumer as the level of analysis (Cornwell et al., 2008; Bailey et al., 2010). Advertising research notes that an individual’s identity is challenged during transitions (Epp and Price, 2008; Noble and Walker 1997; Schouten 1991) and that transitions lead to disruptions in consumption (Andreasen 1984; Fellerman and Debevee 1993). Some of these identity disruptions are those that we invite or anticipate, such as marriage. Many scholars address a particular transitional or liminal period in which identity is challenged and marketplace resources as symbolic anchors to a preliminal self and markers of a postliminal self (Belk 1992; Curasi, Price, and Arnould 2004; Lastovicka and Fernandez 2005; Mehta and Belk 1991; Noble and Walker 1997). In addition, researchers have explored various life stages viz., childbirth, motherhood, divorce, adulthood, family identity, retirement etc., in depth conceptually and empirically.