Examine the factors affecting power relationships and the division of labour between couples Domestic labour is housework, childcare and paid work. In 1955, Parsons suggested that the husband and wife have different roles within the family; the man’s role was named instrumental. He is expected to achieve success at work and financially support the family whereas the wife was expected to look after the house, raise the children emotionally and cook. This was named the expressive role. Parsons said that these roles made things ‘nice and functional’.
A symmetrical family is a family where ale the chores are shared equally between couples. Sociologists like Sullivan give reasons for a symmetrical family. An example of this is that there are more women working and that they are bringing in more money to help ensure that help can be hired, eg cleaners. Another example is commercialisation of housework, eg more ready meals, microwaves and washing machines mean that men do not mind doing these chores because they do not have to spend too much time on these tasks. Another example is the shifting social attitudes which mean that it is more accepted in society for men to do housework.
Nate Smith Diana Reaves ENGL 1013 10/2/12 The Reality of Marriage with Kids Is having a functional, benefiting marriage feasible once children and their many needs become a part of a couple’s life? For Hope Edelman and Eric Bartels, two adults trying to balance work, marriage, and children, the task seems near impossible at times. Hope Edelman explains in “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was” her expectation of having “shared responsibility” (Edelman 284). But actually raising a child single-handedly while her husband, John, is consumed with his work.
Since they let their responsibility go, the house replaced the parents which made the children feel that the house is their parents. Also, with the amount of technology they have, they rely on technology too much which became other human contact. With that being said, technology doing everything for you is not great but to an extent it is fine. In the short story, “The Veldt”, the house takes responsibility for the family and the children feel that the house is their parents. The children rely on their technology that is available for them instead of their parents.
Sybil and Sheila share some similarities but have many differences and you can say that, from Sheila’s actions, she is from the new generation. This is demonstrated whilst the family are celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft, Sybil says ‘when you’re married you’ll realize that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You’ll just have to get used to that.’ Sheila’s response was I don’t believe I will’ this is insinuating that Sheila may not stay at home and raise a family but will acquire a job. These actions are dissimilar to Mrs Birling’s as Sybil would and has been looking after the house and also raising a family. This implies that Sheila disagrees with the way her mother lives and would like to have the same rights as men showing that she is a person who wants equality.
From 1950's living and working in the uk we see that a male follows a patriarchal role and goes out to work while the wife stays at home and cooks and cleans as well as dealing with childcare waiting for the father to come home to provide emotional support and comfort from the strains of working life.Now in the modern day we see changes in conjugal roles in the family and now both parents may usually work and share jobs within the household.Wilmot and Young suported conjugal roles and that at the time of writing in 1970 that housework and leisure time were both shared as opposed to 1950s nuclear families where jobs and chores may have only been done by the wife in the household. Reconstituted families has increased in Britain significantly 1 in 10 children live with one birth parent and one step parent as well as over half the children in reconstituted families have a positive view of there divided lives Haskey 1994. This shows a big increase in family diversity and reconstituted families have an overall positive view, after all reconstituted families can provide emotional and financial support similar to the warm bath theory by parsons, and can help to provide a loving family to then
High income careers, management careers, political careers and engineering carriers are considered just for men. Home chores are clearly for women. It’s not expected from a man to do jobs like cooking, cleaning the house , care child in home or babysitting jobs although this pattern have been changed a little in recent years due to social and economic changes. Although based on traditional gender roles some fields like nursing are highly feminine this pattern not only change but also this change effects on other fields like gender roles in work area. The number of highly educated women in management, engineering, journalism and social science increased in recent years and this change are changing all former social structure related to gender roles.
Men were seen to be increasingly helping with domestic chores, childcare and decision making about family life. They found that 72% of husbands helped with these household tasks. They’re argument was based on the fact that women are becoming more dependant and career driven providing more time for the men to be drawn into the family circle. However, feminists may argue that ‘occasionally helping out’ is not providing clear evidence of the symmetrical family exists. Feminists suggest that socialization within the household can cause inequality in the future as they are treated differently as children, for example; girls are given dolls and play kitchens whereas boys are given trucks and play power tools, etc.
Work ethic was probably different in medieval because the wife would be a house wife and raise the children and clean the house and even raise the children. The wives today can do just about anything. They could join our military and be a cop or even work as a construction worker. Today some husbands stay home while the wife works and he stays home to raise the kids cook and clean the
Children without adoptive parents can be raised by their grandparents or other family members. Although mother have more responsibility to raising a child, I personally think that both parents should assume equal responsibility in raising a child. In this era, in most family, fathers are working hard to fulfill his family needs. Many children spend more time in home with mother as compared to the time that they spend with their father. Almost every time child spend without father, just with their mother.