Assess the view that the family is patriarchal.

  However radical feminist Anne Oakley believed that the unpaid role of the housewife was socially constructed around the time of the Industrial Revolution. With the change from the Domestic to the Factory system men stopped working at home and started leaving home everyday to work in factories. A new role of "housewife" was socially constructed for married women and became part of their culture. Domestic work became to be seen falsely as naturally women's work. Women had been excluded from the workforce and confined to home where they was responsible for housework and childcare whereas men were the breadwinners and would provide for the family. Oakly criticises Young and Willmott as she believes that there is evidence that the claims they have made have been exaggerated and in fact her view is that things are not becoming more equal between men and women which was backed up when Mary Boulton found out that fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare.

In contrast to Willmott and Young, Oakley claims that the division of labour within families remains unequal with the burden of domestic work still falling on women even when they are also in paid employment. This is referred to as the "double" or "dual burden" which benefit men as this means the family is still patriarchal. 

In 1999 Gillian Dunne conducted a case study of the division of labour in 37 cohabiting lesbians households, this was found to be very different to the division labour previously found in nuclear households which shown that domestic labour was equally split between both women, and nearly in all couples whose partner did the most paid work did the least amount of housework. lesbian couples had no roles for a specific gender as they were both female they was more likely to do more tasks than others as they are both women and had been socialised this way. This was very different to heterosexual households where it was found the man was more dominant as gender roles had become deeply constructed into society.

 In 1995 Duncombe & Marsden said that women are not only required to carry out the dual burden but now the ‘triple shift’ which included paid work, emotion work and house work. Even though there had been a change over the generations, the division of labour still affects cohabiting couples as men have begun to share the housework and the family is become more symmetrical.

  Although the socially constricted norms of women doing the triple shift has not completely changed as women are still expected to do the majority as it as seen to be in their nature. Also this gender scripted assumption has added extra pressure to marriages as a result of men thinking their wives are suppose to do the housework etc. and this has lead to the increase in divorce and also domestic violence within couples.

In conclusion the result of change in generation and evidence over the last 50 years has shown the changes such as the march of progress and the patriarchal family were the male is dominant has changed as a lot as women have become more equal within society and so although men and women are not completely equal there is enough evidence to show that the family and roles of men and women is changing and has changed over time so the family is no longer patriarchal.