THE FAMILY

OVER THE LIFE

CYCLE
Changes have been taking place in the American family that have profound
consequences for gender roles. Consider the following statistics:

- Only 13% of all American families consist of a married couple in a first marriage and
their own children in which the husband is the provider and the wife is a homemaker.

- Majority of married couples (62%), both spouses are in the work force (52% of the
mothers of preschool children work).

- More people are staying longer, and more will stay single permanently.

- In 1984, there were nearly 2million cohabiting households, more than 3 times the
number that existed in 1970. By 1991, one-third of all women had cohabited at some
time.

- 50% chance of the people are marrying today will divorce. However, the divorce rate has
been declining slowly since 1980.
- 75% of those divorcing will remarry.

- In 1984, about 20% of white families and 59% of black families were headed by a single
parent.

- Among children born in 1986, 23.4% were born to unmarried mothers.

- Among those who marry, many are remaining childless, having only one child, or
delaying childbearing.

- 60% today’s children will spend some time in a step family, and in 1990,15% of all
families were stepfamilies.

- By the year 2030, almost one-fifth of the population will be over age 65, and this figure
will include many older families.
 The American family has changed dramatically from the “traditional” family
consisting of two adults in first marriage who have several children, with a working father
and a homemaker mother. These changes are likely to continue and to accelerate in the
future.
It is ironic that American have never quite accepted the changing family and tend to
think of any variation of the traditional family as deficient or even deviant. The traditional
family of the American dream has or a myth. The cozy, large family of the past is usually a
figment of our imagination. In reality, colonial families were often broken by death if not
divorce, and remarriages were a necessity if people were to survive.
While women had many children, those children often died soon after birth, and
children 12 years old usually sent out of the household to learn a trade. Violence in the
family was not unusual, and in many ways family lives were much harder than they are
today. Marriages tended to be for economic necessity, and love grew after marriage, if at
all.
 Yet the belief in the traditional family persists, and we keep trying to get back the
good old days”. The media push its desirability, and people who do not have such family
may believe that they have somehow failed.
As society has changed so dramatically in the last fifty years or so, it is inevitable that
the family has changed as well. Yet in many ways the institution of marriage is on of the
places where stereotyped masculine and feminine roles have changed the least.
In this chapter we shall look at how stereotyped masculine and feminine roles are
intertwined with and emphasized by the institution of marriage. We will first look at how
changing patterns of marriage influence gender roles and how these changing gender
roles in turn influence the pattern of interaction within a marriage. We will examine how
the institution of marriage influences the behavior of men and women and how the
addition of children, the occupational roles of husband and wife, and other elements of
reward and tension in a marriage influence gender roles.
 STAYING SINGLE
As we examine male and female roles in the twenties age group, we are stuck by the
increase in the number of people in this group who are staying single.

- In 1970, 54.7% of men and 35.8% of women who were 20 to 24 were single.
- In 1986, 75.5% of men and 57.9% of women are not married.
- In the age group from 25 to 29 the trend is even more marked.
- In 1970, 19.1% of men and 10.5% of women remained single.
- In 1986, 41.4% of men age 25 to 29 and 28.1% of women in that age group are not
married.

However, the increase in people who have never married seems to represent among a
postponement of marriage rather than a denial of the institution.

- In 1970, age 30 to 34, 9.4% of men were single and 22% were single in 1986.
- For both men and women, the numbers remaining single until they were over 34
years of age had doubled.

- 35 to 39 years old, the increase remaining single is much lower.

- First marriage in this country now occurs about 3 years later that it did a generation
ago.

Will there be an increase in the number who stay single as well? Proportions of
current population trends show an increase in those remaining single. Those who were in
the “Marriage years” 20 to 29 years only 3 to 4 % have remained single. Predictions for
those who were in that age group in 1980 show 10% of men and 12% of women
remaining single.
the possible tripling of people who remain single means that this country will be
“changing from one of the developed countries with the smallest proportions never
marrying to a country with one of the largest proportions never marrying.” it is likely that
some increase in those remaining permanently single will occur.
“Why are more young adults postponing marriage or staying single today?”

Increasing inflation has also made it difficult to settle down in a marriage. Houses
are priced out of the range of many young couples, two incomes are often need for
necessities, and children become a postponed luxury. However, there is more to this
change than demographics, Jessie Bernard in “The Rise and Fall of the Good Provider
Role” and Barbara Ehrenreich in “The Heart of men” attempt to explain the change in
commitment that has taken place. And Ann Swidler states that there is a fear of
adulthood as well as commitment.

We can see that American young people are staying single longer or permanently
for a number of reasons. Personal fears about commitment and the work if adulthood
are aided and abetted by demographic changes, particularly women entering the work
force, and keep both sexes away from the altar/
 Influences of Longer Singlehood
on Gender-Role Behavior
As women stay single longer, get more education, and work in varied and demanding
careers, it is likely they will become more independent and assertive. Men who have lived
alone have had more time to practice domestic chores.

Ehrenreich’s analysis is particularly pessimistic. She sees men abandoning emotional

responsibility toward women at the same time that they have abandoned the idea of
financially supporting women.
 LIVING TOGETHER
As greater social approval makes cohabitation easier, many men and women are opting
for living together before or instead of marriage. The number of living-together couples has
risen from 523,000 in 1970 to 2,590,000 in 1988 increasing about 15% a year.

Even if that growth rate slows, it is likely that the number of cohabiting couples will continue
to increase during the 1990s. Some researchers suggested that cohabitation is now
institutionalized and is an intermediate step between dating and marriage.
 For the age group in the middle and late twenties, cohabitation seems to have a
slightly different meaning. For some, it is a way to test a relationship and see if they want
to get married; for others, it is a more or less permanent alternative to marriage.

Among those in all age groups who cohabit, 53% have never been married, 35% are
divorced, 4% are widowed, and the rest are separated.

Cohabitation is also common among the elderly. Because of economic necessity, it is

often an alternative to marriage. A widow who remarries will lose her previous husband’s
Social Security allowance, and the new couple may not be able to live without it.

“How those cohabitation affect gender-role attitudes?”

 LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Many people do not realize that most marriages throughout history, including our
own historical past, were not based on love. Marriages were arranged for economic
necessity or to cement relationships between various groups. In spite of the romantic
ideal in our culture, many marriages continue to emphasize security and/or
companionship rather than love.
In Cuber and Harroff’s description of love five kind’s of marriage, 80% “utilitarian” in
nature. In particular many couples had a “passive-congenial” type of marriage in which
they did not marry for love expect much love in the marriage. Others had a “devitalized”
marriage, others were “Conflict-habituated”. Only in “Vital” and “Total” marriages did the
coupes have a real emotional bond.
 AMERICAN
MARRIAGES: A MYTH
OF EQUALITY
Some people believe that norms about equality of persons in the United States extend
into the institution of marriage and mean that husband and wife are more nearly equal in
this country than they are in others.
 Differences in Power
Equality, Power, and Resources.
 Decision Making and Division
of Labor
Usually decision-making power in a family changes toward the equalitarian
minded before the division of labor does. The argument of Scanzoni and Fox in their
review of sex role literature in 1970s, preference and process are interwoven in such
a way that some behaviors change more rapidly than others do. Some behavioral
change is taking place because norms are changing. Thus, if men believe that they
should listen to their wives and give them a voice in decision-making process may
change even though the wife’s power has not really changed.
 Why the difference between
Decision Making and Division of
Labor?
“Why are men are more willing to grant decision-making power to women than to
help around the house? Why are women willing to engage in conflict about decisions
rater than conflict about household chores?”

Determining what is men’s and women’s work is also tied directly to gender roles.
 The “His” Marriage
This culture is generally believed that a woman is “better dead that unwed” and
that she therefore chases a man until she catches him. Conversely, we believe that
bachelors are lucky, happy men who avoid marriage at all costs until they are trapped
into it. Contrary to these social beliefs, however, it is the man who seems to be the
happiest in marriage and to benefit from it.
 The “Her” Marriage
Bernard says that she starts out with some advantages that marriage reverses. Women,
both single and married, have much better physical health than men and live longer.
However, in comparison to their single sisters, married women have poor mental health.
Married women report much higher rates of anxiety, phobia and depression.

“Why are married women so much less happy than their husbands and their single
sisters? “
What is the Solution to Problems in
the “Her” Marriage?
“What is the significance of all this? Is the structure of marriage so bad in women that
they should avoid it?”

While the trend seems to be that women are staying single longer and while more women
are staying single permanently, most will want to get married.
 The Shock Theory of Marriage
Bernard takes Gove’s hypothesis and elaborates it in what she calls the “shock theory” of
marriage. She describes some of the legal, social, and personal changes that occur in women’s
live when they become wives.

“Whatever may be the reason of the law, the rule is maintained, that the legal
existence of the wife is merged in that of the husband, so that, in law, the husband and
wife are one person.
The husband’s dominion over the person and property of the wife is fully recognized.
She is utterly incompetent to contract in her own name. He is entitled to her society and
her service; to her obedience and her property.
In consideration of his marital rights the husband is bound to furnish the wife a home
and suitable support.”
Changing the Values Implied in
Different Kinds of Work
 GENDER ROLES AND
MARITAL
SATISFACTION
As one might suspect from the above analysis, changing gender roles are related to marital
happiness. We have seen that fewer married women reported themselves to be happy in 1986
than did so in 1972. The lesser happiness of married women with nontraditional gender role
seems to hold in age, education, and work status.

Other research confirms that men are more likely to believe in innate traditional gender
roles which justify their advantaged position.
 THE TRANSITION TO
PARENTHOOD
Opting Not to have children
Parenthood is not always the option chosen by young couples today. More couples
are opting for childlessness, and many more are delaying the time when they have the
first child or are having fewer children.
Most studies of couples who are considering or have opted for childlessness have
included relatively small samples and are dated.
 Having Fewer Children
There are many reasons for the smaller families of today. Marriage occurs at a large age,
and this means fewer childbearing years. The high divorce rate also reduces the number of
childbearing years for many women.