She also goes on to claim that the reason men participate in more childcare than housework is because they usually play with the children rather than change their nappies or bathe them. She found that none of the women questioned their primary duty of looking after the home and they all saw men doing household tasks as ‘helping them’.
Other studies that looked at the division of labour are the following;
- Dryden (1999) who studied 17 married couples and found that women still had the major responsibility for housework and childcare.
- A survey carried out for the insurance firm Legal & General in April 2000 found that full time working mothers spent 56 hours per work on household tasks and childcare and men only 36. If the women had a child aged 3 and under this then increased to 84 hours.
- The Future Foundation Survey (2000) found a positive in the division of labour and found that two thirds of men said they did more around the home than their fathers and women said they were receiving more help from husbands and boyfriends.
- Bernard (1982) found that men were more satisfied with their marriages than women, many of whom expressed emotional loneliness, and these men had no idea their wives were unhappy.
- Martin & Roberts (1984) based their sample on nearly 6000 women aged between 19-59. They found that if the wife had a paid job then men were more likely to take an active role in housework and childcare. However, 54% of women who worked full time and 77% who worked part time did all or most of the housework.
- Susan Yeandle (1984) backed up the argument that women still carried the double burden of paid work and household responsibilities.
- Fiona Devine (1992) found that if the wife worked part time the husband had greater involvement in childcare and sometimes housework but that involvement was due to financial need rather than family responsibility.
- Mckee & Bell (1986) suggest that the male’s masculine identity is threatened by losing a job and that wives are not willing to threaten it further by asking them to take on more domestic roles.
Problems with looking at the division of labour are that different tasks may require more effort and other tasks are not considered in the division of labour. Focusing on tasks such as cooking and cleaning show that women do most of the work but if tasks such as fixing the car or paid employment are considered then it may be seen as more equal. Another problem is that judging the division by the concept of time taken to do tasks may be misleading due to many women with children being ‘on call’, meaning they may have to get up in the night to attend to their child or have continuous responsibilities such as preparing meals or keeping the house clean. Lastly the satisfaction and value of tasks is not considered, many women may enjoy having the role of a housewife and many may just see it as repetitive and monotonous.
To look at the wider picture of the division, Gillian Dunne (1999) studied lesbian households. She found that the amount of housework and childcare done was largely equal between them and they took turns in reducing their paid employment to spend more time with the children.
Decision making between couples largely contributes to the equality they enjoy. Financial matters are always an issue within marriage and Barrett & McIntosh (1991) found that men gain more from their wife doing domestic work than they give back in financial support, financial support is often unpredictable and comes with strings attached, and men usually make the decisions about spending on important items. Kempson (1994) also found that resources were shared unequally, claiming that among low-income families, women denied their own needs, seldom going out and eating smaller portions or skipping meals in order to make ends meet. Also Graham (1984) found that over half of the women living on benefits after separating from their husbands said they and their children were better off stating that benefits were a more reliable source of income. The trend in many households was that a woman has no entitlement to a share of household resources, seeing money spent on herself as money that ought to be spent on essentials for the children. Even in households with adequate incomes, resources are shared unequally, leaving women in poverty.
Feminists Pahl & Vogler (1993) looked at how each partner’s contribution to family income affects decision making in the family. They found that there were 2 main types of control over family income;
- Pooling – Where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure e.g. a joint bank account.
- Allowance system – Where men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the family’s needs, with the men retaining any surplus income for himself.
They argue that pooling is more common within marriages where both partners work full time and that it is on the increase, but also that the male usually made the important decisions. Hardill (1997) supported this view in her research on 30 dual-career professional couples, finding that the important decisions were usually taken by the man alone or jointly and his career took priority when deciding whether to move house for a new job. Edgell, mentioned above, also created a classification system based on the importance of decisions;
- Very important decisions – Such as those involving finance, changing job or moving house, were either taken by the husband alone or jointly but the husband would have final say.
- Important decisions – Such as those about children’s education or where to go on holiday, were usually taken jointly and seldom by the wife alone.
- Less important decisions – Such as the choice of household decorations, children’s clothes and food purchases were usually made by the wife.
He agrees with Pahl & Vogler by claiming the reason men usually make the bigger decisions is because they earn more and because women are financially dependent on their husbands, they have less of a say.
Patriarchal ideology also plays a big part in decision making. The fact that men are usually seen as the head of the household means that their role as the decision maker is never questioned and the divide will remain until it is challenged.
Not much work has been done on the emotional or invisible work of women within marriage but it is seen as an important part in the equality of partners. Marjorie L. DeVault (1991) carried out a study with 30 women and 3 men who lived in 30 households, from a variety of ethnic and class backgrounds. She found that there is a lot more planning involved in certain tasks than others and therefore more invisible work to be done.
Also Jean Duncombe & Dennis Marsden (1995) studied the emotional work of women, their research being based on interviews with 40 white couples that had been married for 15 years. They found that many women expressed dissatisfaction with their partners emotional input and that they were holding the relationship together by doing the crucial emotional work. Often many women have to pretend they are happy in a marriage in order to keep it afloat and they end up performing a triple shift of paid employment, housework, and emotional work.
This shows that there are many areas that sociologists neglect, such as the emotions of the individuals within the marriage and that this may mean that women do a lot more work than the statistics of things such as household tasks may show.
The last area that definitely shows there is inequality within marriage is the existence of domestic violence. Many think that domestic violence is the work of a few troubled individuals but many sociologists have challenged this view, claiming that it is far too widespread and statistics show that domestic violence accounts for a sixth of violent crimes, with 6.6 million assaults a year. Also argued is that it is not a random act, but rather it follows a social pattern. The most common pattern is that it is mainly violence caused by men against women.
Mirrlees-Black found that most victims were women, 99% of cases against women were done by men, one in four women have been assaulted by their partner in their life and one in eight repeatedly assaulted.
Dobash (1979) looked to find the reason for such crimes and found that often they are set off by the woman challenging their husband’s authority e.g. asking him why he was late home. They also go on to argue that marriage legitimates violence by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependence on wives.
Official statistics may never show the true extent of domestic violence because firstly victims may be unwilling to report a case, and also the police may be reluctant to record or investigate cases. Cheal (1991) argued that this was so because the police feel as if they do not want to be involved in family life and these 3 assumptions are made on families;
- The family is a private sphere that should have limited access by state agencies.
- The family is a good thing, therefore darker sides are neglected.
- Individuals are free agents and are free to leave if they are experiencing abuse, but wives are often financially dependent on husbands so cannot leave.
Radical feminists blame the patriarchal society for the existence of domestic abuse for example Firestone (1970) argued that all societies have been founded on patriarchy and therefore the male is always seen as dominant and the female is always oppressed, preserving the power that all men have over women. However, Elliot (1996) rejects the radical feminist’s claim that all men benefit from violence against women and state that not all are aggressive and most are opposed to domestic violence. Mirrlees-Black also identified the following groups as at a great risk of domestic violence;
- Children and young people
- Those in the lowest social classes
- Those who live in rented accommodation
- Those on low incomes or in financial difficulties
- Those with high levels of alcohol or drug consumption (According to the British Crime Survey, the offender was under the influence of alcohol in 39% of cases.).
This shows that inequality remains within couples living in these sorts of arrangements and the abuse on kids may reflect the sort of power allocation within the parents.
Wilkinson (1996) offers an explanation of these patterns. He sees domestic violence as a result of stress caused by social inequality, such as some families having a lower income or poorer housing. This gives an alternative view to the reason for domestic violence, with it being social inequality rather than inequality between husband and wife.
To summarise the explanations of the inequalities in power and control in families by theories is as the following;
- Functionalists see the sexual division as biologically inevitable, seeing women as suiting to the caring and emotional role and men to the role of the breadwinner.
- Liberal feminists believe that progress has been made to gain equality and that men are adapting to the change which brings hope to the future of equality.
- Marxist-feminists argue that the role of the housewife helps to serve the needs of a capitalist society therefore is needed for society to function.
- Radical feminists as shown above feel that inequality was created by a patriarchal society and the oppression of women is a result of it. They also see their oppressed role as rooted in their biological role as mothers.
The evidence from several studies and the views of sociologists show that there is still a lot of inequality between husband and wife but it is possibly less easy to spot and therefore seems to be increasing. However there has been an improvement since wives have taken up paid employment and husbands have started to take more of an active role in the housework and childcare in the home. The act of decision making is still largely in the hands of the husband, with the most important decisions being made by him and the less important ones by the wife, but it is affected by who is in paid employment within the household. The wife also has the role of keeping everyone’s emotions in check and this is often overlooked in the analysis of work done, with things such as planning also neglected. Domestic violence shows that there is still inequality between husband and wife, with the majority of cases being the man abusing the woman so therefore the male is still the dominant in marriage.
