Left back: feelings lived by wives of emigrants submitted to the matrimonial isolation

Abstract

The international emigration in Governador Valadares and its region initiate in the 1960s, whose apex occurred in the 1980s, it continues as important process of population displacement, in spite of the restrictive policies imposed by the United States. Until the 1990s, the masculine emigration grew considerably, inducing the formation of new family configurations and new ways of organization of the daily routines for the partners that stayed in Brazil. The present study investigates the feeling of solitude lived by wives of emigrants submitted to the matrimonial isolation due to the partner's leaving for exterior countries as emigrant. It is a fact finding in which home interviews were accomplished guided by a Semi-Structured Interview Guide with 247 women residents in Governador Valadares/MG city. The sample wasn´t probabilistic, but intentional, the data of quantitative nature were submitted to the descriptive analysis, and the data of qualitative nature (fragments of the speeches) to the Analysis of Content proposed by Bardin. Although the plan to emigrate is formed by the family nucleus and leaning by the characteristic Migratory Culture of the region, there are evidences that the interviewees live considerable psychic suffering, suggesting that the emigration process brings undesirable implications for all of them that are involved.