The common perception of marriage is that it was originally weighted heavily in favour of the male member of the couple, and that this has shifted slowly to a more even-handed arrangement in recent years. This essay will examine the question of how accurate this belief really is. Historically, marriage was highly unequal. While the husband took the role of breadwinner and went out to earn the necessary money to support the family, his wife was expected to stay at home and look after the more mundane tasks that make up the day-to-day running of a household. As the former role was commonly seen as more valuable than the latter, this often meant that the husband held most of the power, such as deciding where they would live, how resources were distributed, etc.
Parsons said that these roles made things ‘nice and functional’. He also said that men and women were biologically suited to these roles so it was only natural for men to be the breadwinners and women are the stay at home wives. This is a very traditional view. There are many factors affecting power relationships and the division of labour between couples. Firstly, whether a family live in a symmetrical family or not will have an effect on the divisions of labour.
During that time, the expected role of men and women are different, men were expected to be a bread winner and women just expected to be a house wife. However, Ibsen believes these roles limit individual freedom and his play “A Doll’s House” explores the belief that duty to self in more important, and must come before duty to others. The beliefs in 19thcentury and values are different from now. In that time, women’s personal growth and freedom are limited. At that time, a woman’s life is just like passing from her father’s hand to her husband’s.
For example, women now go out to work, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Feminists reject the ‘March of Progress’ theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and therefore women occupy a subordinate and dependant role within the family and wider society. In addition in Mary Boulton’s research backed this, she found that fewer than 20% of husbands had a majority role in childcare. Overall it could therefore be argued that rather than partners becoming more equal, women now have to carry a ‘dual burden’, whereby she is responsible for two jobs of unpaid or paid labour.
Functionalist Murdock suggested as children we are socialised into societies shared norms and values and he believed that males provide the economic roles and females provided the expressive role. Therefore it is natural for women to play the expressive role in the household looking after the family’s emotional needs. However, radical feminist Ann Oakley argues that the role of the housewife is a social construction and isn’t linked to the female role. The housewife role makes sure that women stay inferior to men making it difficult for them have careers. Women carry out the triple burden in the household; the domestic labour, emotional labour, and paid labour.
If paid family leave would become more available, fathers would be able to stay home and bond with their infant during that very important time in their lives. Also, with both parents being home, there can be more household division of labor and less conflict. Unfortunately men do not take family leave for fear of loss of income. When men take time off to care for family members, their long term earnings suffer-just as womens do. If paid family leave is extended to both partners it would help reduce gender differences.
For example, women now go out to work and become wage earners, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Feminists reject this theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and that children are being taught from an early age that the traditional roles are the norm. She also rejects Parsons Theory of saying that it is controlled by biology she believes it is controlled by society. Overall it could therefore be
Abigail Adams believed women should be educated and be recognized for their intellectual capabilities, so they could guide and influence the lives of their children and husband instead of being companions. Three reasons why men shouldn’t be given unlimited power are because women and men should have equal powers, education and property rights. Would you want to live a life where the husband treats you as a slave and he’s the master? Or where women are ignored and do not have any property rights? While John Adams was attending the Continental Congress to support American independence, Abigail Adam asked her husband to “remember the ladies” (pg.
Child rearing, not economic competence, for example is considered the primary task of the parents (Fisher, 2002), and gender roles in the Amish community are considered to be traditional. The man works, the woman raises the children. However, the Amish family is non-traditional in the way that the man has the absolute say in any matter. As in most families, gender roles in Amish marriages vary by personality; there are shades of dominance from husband to wife across a wide spectrum with many variations. In non-farm families, typically the husband is the primary breadwinner, but in cases where a wife owns a business, she may provide most of the family income.
Gender roles aren’t as clear cut as they used to be. Women are as actively involved in the work force as their male counterparts, and often enough, the wives are the breadwinners while the husbands dutifully stays home and watches out for the family. Or in the case of the Cobb family, the husband and wife divorced, but still co-parented their son, with help, and input from their friends and neighbors. While the idea of the nuclear family to some is antiquated, there are many that would like to see it revived in entertainment, believing that life imitates art instead of the other way around. While the reality is that these families are here to stay, on television, and in the entertainment media, because looking into the streets, these are increasingly the types of families making up