Marital roles

Marriage is important as the accepted institution for the expression of adult sexuality. A mutually satisfying sex life is important to both men and women, although social scientists point out that marital roles involve much more than this. Romantic love is only one of the reasons people marry. Social and economic security, and indeed social pressures, can be equally important.

Relations between the sexes are to a large extent culturally as well as biologically determined. The image of the “macho” male is well-known and attributed commonly to Mediterranean and Latin American cultures. In working-class British culture, too, tenderness in a sexual relationship has been traditionally regarded as unmanly. The public image that such men wish to project is based on sexual prowess rather than on emotional intimacy. This image may even be retained after marriage if manliness is defined by how completely a man can rule his household.

In the past, women frequently took their social status from their husbands, but by the late 20th century there was an increasing tendency for women to be regarded as equal partners in marriage. The traditional norm, where women remained at home and men went out to work, has changed rapidly. As women gain status from their own occupations outside the home, they are beginning to achieve equality with men. Women's traditional sphere of influence has been the home, however, and in cultures as diverse as the Khoekhoe of southern Africa and sections of the working-class population of modern Britain, women's economic authority in the home remains paramount. Even today it is not uncommon for the British husband to depend on his wife to give him spending money, even though it may originate in his wages.

In a study of the family in a low-income area of London, British sociologists Michael Young and Peter Willmott found that what had previously been regarded as the typical late 19th-century family had survived into the 1950s. This type of family was centred on the economic separation of the roles of husband and wife, sometimes with both partners working and frequently with the wife sharing domestic tasks with female relatives who lived nearby. Young married women, for example, received help from their mothers in shopping, household chores, and babysitting. In further studies made in the 1970s, however, Young and Willmott documented changes toward what they called the “ symmetrical family,” in which kin networks had ceased to be as extensive as in the past and husbands and wives shared domestic tasks between them. Social activities, too, had become more couple-centred, as in many cases men stayed home, perhaps to watch television, rather than to socialize with their male friends. In short, at least in London, there was a development of working-class marital roles toward a pattern similar to that found in most middle-class households. Indications are that the trend is a widespread one.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16