Conjugal Roles The division of labour in marriage

Segregated and Joint roles  Segregated – husbands go out to work, wives responsible for housework and childcare. Leisure time also spent apart – the “traditional” picture.  Joint – sharing of roles. Women work, men share domestic tasks. More likely to spend leisure together too

Functionalists and “symmetry”  Functionalists such as Parsons, Wilmott and Young have argued that industrialisation has led to egalitarian marriage, joint conjugal roles in the symmetrical nuclear family

Critiques of functionalist view  Anne Oakley highly critical of methodology of W and Y.  Barrett argues women’s work outside the home limited to that which is compatible with family commitments (patriarchical ideology  Pahl even unemployed men expect their wives to do the bulk of the housework

Critiques of functionalist view 2  Stephen Edgell – wives still defer to husbands in decision making  Lydia Morris – unemployed men even less likely to share domestic tasks – a threat to their “masculinity” already damaged by unemployment  Elston – only a small minority of professional couple have joint conjugal roles

Conclusions  There is some evidence of change in conjugal roles  However it is clear that the equality and symmetry the functionalists speak of is somewhat idealised.  Now try the Cloze activityCloze activity