Why Not the Male Baby? The Modality of Marital Suffering within the Assisted Reproductive Technology

Abstract

The absence of the child boy in the household, a problem that has hardly been studied by researchers in the human and social sciences, specifically by clinical psychologists, is one of the modalities of marital suffering in certain couples in traditional black Africa. The birth of a male child, a neglected parameter in some societies, is more of an injunction that fits into the cultural values of most Cameroonian ethnic groups. This article aims to explain the anxiety-depressive behavior observed in infertile couples confronted with assisted reproduction in a context where the culture requires a male child, the future guarantor of the lineage, but where the preimplantation diagnosis does not allow the choice of the sex of the embryo. Data for this study were collected from the Hospital Anxiety Depression scale and semi-structured interview; with 5 infertile couples; all desirous of conceiving not only a child but a male child, with a view to killing two birds with one stone; taking into account the cultural constraints and the exorbitant cost which does not favor several tests. The age of participants is between 30 and 37 years for women; 35 and 43 years for men. The content analysis technique in its formal variant led to the conclusion that the anxiety- depressive disorders observed in infertile couples who are confronted with ART could be explained by the non-authorization of the choice of sex via the Preimplantation diagnosis, in a context where the presence of a male child is a cultural constraint. They find themselves in a failure of loyalty vis-à-vis their family, in-laws and the entire community.