Conjugal Roles

1
Conjugal Roles

• The division of labour in marriage

2
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

3
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

4
Critiques of functionalist view

• Anne Oakley highly critical of methodology of W
  and Y.
• Barrett argues womens 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

5
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

6
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 activity