Preview

Assess the view that inequality in conjugal relationships continues in British families (20 marks)

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
402 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Assess the view that inequality in conjugal relationships continues in British families (20 marks)
Conjugal roles are the roles a man and woman play in a household or relationship. Elizabeth Bott determined two polar conjugal roles: Segregated roles where the husband and wife do not share housework, childcare, decisions and leisure time, and Joint roles, where the husband and wife do share housework, childcare, decisions and leisure time.

Willmott and Young argued that husbands and wives increasingly shared both leisure and decision-making and that their relationships were becoming more symmetrical. A survey they completed in 1973 showed that 72% of men did housework other than washing the dishes at least once a week. However, their theory is inadequately methologised and critiqued by many other sociologists.

Stephen Edgell (1980) sees decision-making as unequal, with men making all of the important decisions. A survey he completed showed that men made decisions such as the car, moving home and finances, while women made less important decisions concerning childcare, housework and interior decorating. This contrasts with Willmott and Young’s theory, which states that husbands and wives shared decision making.

Anne Oakley highlighted the fact that the survey questions were very vague, and pointed out that “A man who helps with the children once a week would be included in this %, so would (presumably) a man who ironed his own trousers on a Saturday afternoon”. Oakley argues that ‘to help in the house’ is not really evidence of male domestication, and that Willmott and Young’s claims were exaggerated.

Oakley did her own research in 1974, and the conclusions she drew from it were that women still saw housework and childcare as their responsibility. This is supported by Devine, who said that even women in employment did the majority of housework and childcare, though the husbands helped a little.

According to the Functionalist, Talcott Parsons, there are segregated conjugal roles in the family because they are natural. He argues that women naturally

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Soc 402 Week 4 Analysis

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Second Shift . Respond to the following questions: Among twin- income and dual-career families, do you think there will ever be an equal sharing of household work? Why or why not? There has been some indication that women voluntarily assume a larger share of household responsibilities because they feel that their male partners do not perform these tasks satisfactorily. How do you think this observation fits in with the sharing of housework?…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Parsons also argued that these different roles were ‘natural’ to benefit whole family. However Elizabeth Bott in 1957 put these divisions into ‘joint and segregated conjugal roles’, meaning that within the family roles were shared or divided, for example those roles could be divided like Parsons says instrumental and expressive role, or they can be shared which mean couples share tasks such as housework, childcare and spending their leisure time together. Segregated conjugal roles idea has been criticised as being too traditional by theorists who suggest that equality within the family has happened and that the ‘norm’ of gender roles is diminishing. Therefore, some sociologists say that in the modern society of today, the old functionalist view seems insignificant as it…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Y178 Tma2

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages

    • Men generally do not do the housework as only 7 per cent of men reported they always or usually do it.…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is quite evident that there are inequalities between husbands and wives, such as the division of domestic labour. However some sociologists would argue that the inequalities between husband and wife are beneficial for society. This essay will set out to assess sociological explanations for inequalities between husbands and wives.…

    • 1207 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Furthermore, Oakley describes how the housewife role has become dominant for women in a marriage since the industrialisation in the 19th century. Although women started off as part of the work force…

    • 1343 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summarise, in no more than 10 bullet points, what you understand from table 3 ‘Division of Household tasks by sex in Great Britain, 2002’ in chapter 4 of the module book.…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To quote the famous song "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" by James Brown, "This is a man's world," which has remained steadfast with minor changes. If I were to analyze my life and recall who would take me to buy school supplies, clothing, and groceries, it would be clear that my mother was the one to take on those responsibilities. The scholarly journal “When Does Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work” by Michael Bittman, Paula England, Liana Sayer, Nancy Folbre, and George Matheson describes how data depicts the division of household chores through income within the United States and Australia. It is this scholarly journal that states, “ [...]even when market hours are relatively equal, and relative earnings explain some but only a small share of the variance in which men or women do more,(Bittman et al., 2003, p.191).…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unfortunately, it was not a priority for those young men to help out in the home in-fact most didn’t even know where to begin. Although, this is something that could’ve been changed but it took many years to accomplish. Men just like women can work as a team on the housework and the daily title of breadwinner. Women’s occupation should not limited to “housework and child-raising” only because of their sex (Eastman). If a women wants to stay at home and take care of their families day-to-day needs they should be praised just like the men that have done the same.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Response: This particular article took me by surprise because the fact that back in Colonial times fathers didn’t really help around the house is upsetting and surprising. In my opinion, women and men are obligated to do the same and equal work as eachother.…

    • 766 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Parsons, in the traditional nuclear family, the roles of husbands and wives are segregated. His functionalist model of the family shows a clear division of labour between spouses, with the husbands having instrumental roles, known as providing for the family, and wives having expressive roles to do with socialising the children and being a homemaker. This allows the husband, and the wife to have clear set out tasks but on the other hand, people could say the women have more to deal with and the men have less to do. Parsons also argues that the division of labour is natural because women are ‘naturally’ suited to the nurturing role and the men to that of a provider. Other sociologists have criticised Parsons, for example, Young and Willmott argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners. Furthermore, feminist sociologists reject Parsons’ view that the division of labour is natural, and that it only benefits men. From Parson’s idea of family roles, it could be argued that the family roles have not changed at all, yet the criticisms show that the family roles have changed a little.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Men are more comfortable with their wives going to work than they are willing to help out at home more. In the 1950s, women were expected to be good housewives. Women were not to go college and if they did it was only to meet their future husbands. Women were expected to stay home and do housework and take care of the children. Ferber says, “Housework and childcare continued to be viewed as the women’s responsibility whether or not she also had a paid job” (2). Mothers today are arguing back and forth over the “Mommy Wars”. The “Mommy Wars” is where working mothers are criticizing stay at home mothers for not working and in turn, non-working mothers criticize working mothers for not spending enough of family time together. Rather than debating the “Mommy Wars” some women are complaining of having to work “the second shift” once they get home from work. The second shift refers to when a mother has worked a full day and then goes home to do just about the same amount of work by cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and taking care of the kids. Ferber says, “Women do fifty-two hours a week in housework and child rearing while the men do eleven hours a week” (2). Men should be contributing to the housework more, regardless if the wife works or stays at home. The resource theory, proposed by Robert Blood and David Wolfe, “Focuses on the importance of accumulated resources of a spouse as the source of power within a marriage, which is likely to be used to make the other partner do more of the housework” (3, Ferber). The more control women have at work the more control they have at…

    • 1281 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Women and Glbt

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The general consensus of a woman today is no longer confined to the home as a housekeeper and mother taking care of her children. Great strides have been made for women. Today, women are CEOs, hold political offices, business owners, police officers, and much more. Not only are women all of these, but they continue to be the mother and housekeeper as well. They are not simply seen as the weaker sex, but are now seen as intellectually equal to their male counterparts. In some instances, the roles have been reversed in this modern age and some women are the wage earners of the family and the male is the housekeeper and…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    At a very young age women are told they are to learn to cook, clean, and anything of that sort. In time men and women have learned to share the job with one another. Even though there is still a misconception that women are the only ones that have to do house work, men have evolved and are more comfortable with taking upon the…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Second Shift

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Traditionally men worked and brought home the bacon while women stayed home and took care of the children and the home. This changed when the new liberated independent women became driven towards acquiring a career, caring for the children and balancing domestic work. Thus women started to complain about being exhausted from working, multi-tasking, and solely taking care of the house-hold, while their husbands worked and bring forth a paycheck and think that is efficient enough and his job is pretty much done. ‘’I definitely concur with The Second Shift because this essay most women can really relate to, including me. It filters the contribution of what the husband brings to the house-hold versus the woman. It makes me ponder about why our husbands are letting us become husbands”. The author, Ariel Hochschild demonstrates keen examples and stated factual research from her findings on the percentages of husbands that said they should help out around the house and the ones that actually did, and furious Wives who not only had to work an eight hour shift; but also took care of the house-hold duties and tended to the children. From the author’s eight year research she concluded that failed marriages were not due to alcohol, physical and or mental abuse, infidelity, or financial problems, but due to the lack of domestic assistance from the husband.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Inequality In America

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Due to the gender roles provided by society from birth, women are taught to behave and act a certain way within the house. They are thought of as child bearers, cooks, caregivers, and the person who is responsible for other chores around the house; Arlie Hochschild calls this effect the second shift (Conley 469). Due to this effect on society, women may be seen as less expected to work full-time, when in fact, only 3 percent of women managers said that family responsibilities were a main obstacle in their career (Empowering Women). With women being placed into a set category and role, this causes men to see them as weak and unable to work full-time. This barrier could be broken by a more forward way of thinking towards women’s roles in society. There are plenty of women who do not fit the role of housewife, and by placing them into this role, they are being unrightfully judged. With a more forward way of thinking, this issue of set role can be solved within the work…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays