6. Describing Family Relationships: Conjugal relationships Flashcards
What are conjugal roles
The conjugal role refers to the separation of roles within the household based on the individual’s gender.
What conjugal roles were the family previously described as having
Families were previously described as having separated or segregated conjugal roles. This means husband and wife had different roles with the men working for the income and women working for the family.
This meant husband and wife spent little time together and men would dominate decision making as they were in control of finances.
What did functionalists argue about the previous family conjugal roles
Functionalists argued that men and women naturally had different roles with women having an expressive role and men having an instrumental role as women cared for the family’s emotional side while the man took charge of family life.
Parsons viewed this as a good thing however, feminists such as Gavron and oakley by the 1960s challenged this description and conducted research to find that women felt oppressed by family obligations
What is domestic labour
This is labour done for the house such as cooking, cleaning and emotional support.
However, theres a debate that social change meant more women can take on jobs instead of purely doing domestic labour and the fight for equal pay was therefore, debated.
What did Parsons believe about domestic labour
Parsons believes that women can express themselves emotionally through caring for families.
However in the 1970s Wilmott and young suggested that even with men helping women with domestic labour it was still seen as a job for the women.
What do feminists argue about domestic labour
Feminists such as Oakley and Gavron challenged this view and saw housework as being oppressive and dissatisfying.
They argued that women experience boredom and loneliness due to the excessive workloads.
What do feminists state about the triple shift
Women are associated with the triple roles of reproductive, productive and community. In the same context, Dunscombe and Marsden (1995) parted that women in paid employment bear the burden of working a ‘triple shift’. In addition to their paid employment, they are engaged in domestic and ’emotion work’ and mother in a male dominated society.
Devine in 1992 found that because women were working, men had to take on domestic work but this because it was necessary rather than because they wanted to.
What do Delphy and Leonard believe relating to the triple shift
Delphy and Leonard emphasise the importance of work. In their view it is men, rather than capitalists as such, who are the prime beneficiaries of the exploitation of women’s labour.
What is said about decision making in relation to conjugal roles
There is a debate on how much family change has taken place with sociologist Edgell in 1980 arguing that men made the infrequent important decisions in middle-class families even when wives earned money.
Pahl in 1989 found that men and women made decisions about different matters, so while women make frequent small decisions eg: Dinner, men are responsible for the bigger decisions such as: buying a car.
Hunt in 1997 also agreed that women make more decisions but not the significant one.
Hardhill in 1997 also studied families where both partners worked and found that male domination of family decisions but noted a shift towards more equal relationships.
Gershuny in 1992 talked about lagged adaption as more women were going into work, males were having to change but did it more slowly than women
What us said about emotions in relation to conjugal roles
Many functionalists overlook the dark emotions of the family due to the control of women being seen as natural and therefore male violence wasnt seen as a problem.
Erin Pizzey set up the first refuge in London in 1971 but by the 1980s there was over 200 refuges.
Hanmer in 1983 and saunders in 1984 found that women’s behaviour inside the home is constrained by fear of men
What are the statics on domestic abuse
A home office document published in 2014 defined domestic abuse as any incident or patterns of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence and abuse between those 16 and over.
More than half of women are killed by their current or previous partners.
96000 assaults with injuries were reported in 2013 were domestic abuse related
six women are killed every hour by men around the world most by men in their own family or partners.
how have emotions changed
Relationships are becoming companionate with couples putting more time into emotional lives
Giddens, claimed that people now have ‘pure relationships’ as people are now staying together on the grounds of satisfaction.
There is a claim that Joint conjugal relationships are developing where men and women have equal responsibility for making eachother happy.
Hakim in 1995 suggested that women have less commitment to work because fewer of them have jobs than men.
She claims that women have erotic capital and can control men through their desire for sex.
she believes that women can exploit men in the family and work. she argues that many women prefer to be homeworkers despite the fact they’ve choices
