couples

• Domestic division of labour: Parsons

  men and women have biologically suited roles that are functional for society
• Parsons men and women's roles

  • Expressive role - women (home involves cooking, cleaning, looking after children)
  • Instrumental role - man (breadwinner involves providing income for the family)
• Bott

  • Segregated conjugal roles - division of labour between men/women, couples spend leisure time separately
  • Joint conjugal roles - couples share domestic tasks and leisure time
• Willmott and Young found that couples have become more equal as a result of increased joint conjugal roles
• Dual burden: Feri and smith


  Women now do paid and domestic labour
• Triple shift: Duncombe and Marsden 


  Women not only carry the dual burden of paid and domestic work, but also do the emotional work
• decision making

  • material explanation - men have more power because they earn more
  • Cultural explanation - gender role socialisation in institutions views men as the primary decision makers
• Domestic abuse: dobash: marrige and the nuclear family is the key institution of patriarchy, and the main source of women's oppression. Domestic violence is inevitable because it serves to preserve the power men have over women
• Ansley: Domestic violence is the product of capitalism - male workers are exploited at work and take their frustration out on their wives
• Wilkinson: Domestic violence is the reason for stress on the family caused by social inequality
• Postmodernism: argues that there isn't one way of being a couple or family, but many different ways which can be chosen from.
• Giddens: The new individualism has led to the rise of the 'pure relationship', where people choose partners based on love rather than economic need
• Giddens: post modernity has led to the emergence of new forms of relationship such as serial monogamy (having several long term partners) and cohabitation (living together without getting married)