Feminist Explanations

• Feminists argue that married women bear a dual burden:

  • Required to take on paid work
  • Also perform domestic work -> Source of conflict between husbands and wives = divorce
• Marriage has remained patriarchal → Men are benefitting from their wives’ triple shift: Paid Work, Domestic Work and Emotional work
• Radical Feminists Jessie Bernard (1976) → Observes that many women feel a growing dissatisfaction with patriarchal marriage. The rise of divorce rates and the fact that most petitions come from women, as evidence of their growing acceptance of feminists ideas
• Cooke and Gash (2010) → Found no evidence that working women are more likely to divorce. This is because working has now become the accepted norm for married women