the effect of “self recognition” and “relationship with family” on the development of students’ view concerning the kind of opposite sex relations before marriage

the present writing has been an investigation of the students’ view related to the opposite sex and the role of “self recognition” and “relationship with family” in this regard. this research is a qualitative one done through an interview with 30 students of shahid beheshti university (12 males and 18 females). the result of findings shows that in regard with the relationship with the opposite sex, the students are classified within two groups. the group that considers the existence of relationship necessary and one that doesn’t. the students belonging to the first group emphasize on the existence of relationship in various “cognitive”, “emotional” and “gender” dimensions. whereas, to the majority of these students the quality of their relationship with their families has been “cold”, “limited” and “without emotional support”. this group of students has mentioned that their cognition has been achieved through the comparison with the others particularly their friends. the students who have not considered the existence of relationship as a necessary issue but under some specific conditions are divided into two subgroups of “cognitive” and “emotional”. although the parents of both subgroups were against the students’ relationship with the opposite sex, the family relationship of the students belonging to “cognitive relationship” was “warm and deep” while the family relationship of the students belonging to “emotional relationship” was “warm but limited”. the students who believe in merely cognitive relationship and the students who believe in emotional relationship have reported the source of their cognition through the self observation and the others’ reflection respectively.