Wilmott and Young

• The symmetrical family

  The husbands and wife's role are more like joint conjugal roles, where they share responsibilities in a symmetrical family.
• Characteristics of a symmetrical family

  • Women go out to work, although this is often part time
  • Men now help with childcare and housework
  • Couples spend leisure times together, being 'home-centred' or privatised.
• Changes in women's role

  Women are out earning money instead of just doing domestic work. E.g. Equal Pay Act, Sex discrimination act.
• Geographic mobility

  More couples are living away from the communities they grew up in. Couples move for work.
• New technologies

  Labour saving devices - Washing machine, dishwasher etc
• Higher standards of living

  Linked to changes in women's roles because families earn more money. They are 'dual earning couples'

  Makes men stay at home more because they can afford to have luxury items in the home.
• Symmetrical families were characterised by the following:

  • Stable
  • Child-centred
  • Greater levels of equality between males and females
  • Mutual adaptation between needs of home and economy
• Stable?

  • Rising divorce rates
  • Domestic violence
  • Child abuse
• Child-centred?

  • Or centred on the needs of adults
  • Or centred on the needs of the economy
• Symmetrical

  The balance is perfectly centred compositions or those with mirror images. Therefore meaning the same on both sides.