Conjugal Roles (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Sociology): Revision Note

Joint and segregated conjugal roles

• Conjugal roles are the domestic roles of married or cohabiting partners (such as who is responsible for the ironing or the gardening)

The traditional domestic division of labour

• Bott (1971) studied families using qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews with husbands and wives in 20 London-based families with children under 10 years of age

  • She identified two different types of conjugal roles:

Changing roles

• During the early 20th century, conjugal roles were segregated, as married women were expected to take responsibility for housework and childcare

  • Their husbands were expected to be the breadwinner

• Women's roles differed according to their social class

  • Many working-class women had to go out to work in addition to having housework and childcare responsibilities (dual-burden)

  • Middle-class women were not expected to work but instead supervise household employees (such as the maid or the nanny)

  • Amongst both classes, husbands were expected to be the breadwinners, and families were male-dominated

• Sociologists argue that families are changing as they move towards equality in conjugal roles and relationships

  • Conjugal roles are becoming more joint (integrated conjugal roles) rather than segregated

Instrumental & expressive roles

• From a functionalist perspective, Parsons (1956) links sex roles within the family to its functions

  • In the nuclear family, the man takes the instrumental role as the breadwinner

  • The woman takes the expressive role as a housewife and mother, with responsibility for the household and for providing emotional support

  • These roles are important in the primary socialisation of children

  • Parsons believed these roles were allocated based on biological differences between men and women

    • Childbearing means that women are attuned to build strong relationships with their children

    • Men's assertiveness leads them to instrumental direction in the workplace

Key thinkers: Willmott and Young (1973) on the symmetrical family

• In their research, Willmott and Young (1973) wrote from a functionalist perspective

• They studied families in London using large-scale social surveys, where nearly 2000 people took part in a structured interview

• They also carried out a time budget study where participants were asked to complete a diary on the sequence, times and duration of their activities

  • Using this primary data, they were able to compare how much time husbands and wives spent on domestic work

  • Only 411 people completed the diaries

  • Using the mixed methods approach, they were able to collect qualitative and quantitative data

• Willmott and Young developed the term 'symmetrical family' as the typical family type in Britain, whereby:

  • there is more equality between spouses, although not identical

  • spouses perform different tasks, but each makes a similar contribution to the home

  • A 'new man' was emerging who was more likely to engage in domestic tasks

  • wage earning and childcare are shared between men and women

  • leisure time is spent together and at home

  • decision-making is shared, including money management (deciding whether to move house or buy a particular car is a joint decision)

  • The nuclear family is privatised

• Willmott and Young developed the principle of stratified diffusion to explain the changes in family life

  • Many social changes start at the top of the stratification system and filter downwards from the middle class to the working class

• They argued that the symmetrical family had started among middle-class families and was spreading to the working class

Reasons for the move to symmetry

• Feminism

  • The rise of feminism since the 1960s has changed women's attitudes towards education and work, and caused them to reject the housewife role

• Changes in the position of women

  • Many women are financially independent due to entering the workplace, so they have more freedom, equality and status

  • Men are more likely to spend time at home and become more involved with their family if their wives are also working

• Changes in the law

  • Legal changes gave women more equality and status in the workplace, such as the Equal Pay Act (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975)

• Technology

  • Effective birth control means women can decide whether and when to have children

  • Advances in technology have led to more home-based leisure activities (such as playing computer games, watching sports, and streaming services like Netflix)

Criticisms of the symmetrical family

• Liberal feminist criticism

  • Liberal feminist Ann Oakley rejected the idea of the symmetrical family, as she found little evidence of symmetry in her research

  • In 1974, she conducted 40 in-depth interviews with housewives who came from working- and middle-class areas of London

  • Oakley found that:

    • women in paid work still had the main responsibility for housework

    • 15% of husbands were heavily involved in housework

    • 25% of husbands were heavily involved in childcare

• Radical feminist criticism

  • Radical feminists Delphy and Leonard argued that family relationships involve economic exploitation, as men benefit from the unpaid work of women inside the home

• Little change has occurred

  • Media stereotyping portrays women as primarily responsible for many domestic tasks

  • Women still feel they do more of the housework and caring for family members; there is an unequal gender division of labour in the family

    • A 'new man' is possibly hard to find

• Double and triple shifts

  • Today, both partners tend to work, so there are more dual-earner households than before

  • This means that women now work a double shift by having a paid job and doing most of the housework and child-rearing

  • Duncombe and Marsden argue that women work a triple shift, where emotional work is added to domestic work and paid work

• Marxist criticism

  • Marxists believe that women and men have unequal roles because it is a structure that supports capitalism

  • Women who stay at home doing unpaid housework and emotional work are supporting capitalist society because they are providing healthy, happy workers