Marital roles

Marriage is important as the accepted institution for the expression of adult sexuality. A mutually satisfying sex life is important to both men and women, although social scientists point out that marital roles involve much more than this. Romantic love is only one of the reasons people marry. Social and economic security, and indeed social pressures, can be equally important.

Relations between the sexes are to a large extent culturally as well as biologically determined. The image of the “macho” male is well-known and attributed commonly to Mediterranean and Latin American cultures. In working-class British culture, too, tenderness in a sexual relationship has been traditionally regarded as unmanly. The public image that such men wish to project is based on sexual prowess rather than on emotional intimacy. This image may even be retained after marriage if manliness is defined by how completely a man can rule his household.

In the past, women frequently took their social status from their husbands, but by the late 20th century there was an increasing tendency for women to be regarded as equal partners in marriage. The traditional norm, where women remained at home and men went out to work, has changed rapidly. As women gain status from their own occupations outside the home, they are beginning to achieve equality with men. Women's traditional sphere of influence has been the home, however, and in cultures as diverse as the Khoekhoe of southern Africa and sections of the working-class population of modern Britain, women's economic authority in the home remains paramount. Even today it is not uncommon for the British husband to depend on his wife to give him spending money, even though it may originate in his wages.

In a study of the family in a low-income area of London, British sociologists Michael Young and Peter Willmott found that what had previously been regarded as the typical late 19th-century family had survived into the 1950s. This type of family was centred on the economic separation of the roles of husband and wife, sometimes with both partners working and frequently with the wife sharing domestic tasks with female relatives who lived nearby. Young married women, for example, received help from their mothers in shopping, household chores, and babysitting. In further studies made in the 1970s, however, Young and Willmott documented changes toward what they called the “symmetrical family,” in which kin networks had ceased to be as extensive as in the past and husbands and wives shared domestic tasks between them. Social activities, too, had become more couple-centred, as in many cases men stayed home, perhaps to watch television, rather than to socialize with their male friends. In short, at least in London, there was a development of working-class marital roles toward a pattern similar to that found in most middle-class households. Indications are that the trend is a widespread one.

Parental roles

In all societies, past and present, parents have played a major part in caring for children. Modern parents retain the vestiges of their traditional roles, but in many parts of the world they send children to nursery school, kindergarten, and then to school, thus delegating to teachers some of their traditional responsibilities for the socialization of their children. In Western societies there is a tendency toward social equality. Wealthy parents rely less than in the past on nannies to raise their children, and lower- and middle-class parents have greater access to preschool facilities than formerly. As with marital roles, there seems to be a trend toward the reduction of differences in parental roles among social classes. The trends may indeed be related. In the non-Western world, too, modernization and economic development similar to that which took place in Europe during the Industrial Revolution are now creating a situation of greater freedom and responsibility for children. The temporary absence of fathers who take jobs as migrant labourers, for example, may place teenage children in a position of responsibility over their families. At the same time, other young people in these countries often seek employment and independence in urban areas.

Paradoxically, however, from a child's point of view, Western parents are often regarded as inhibiting independence, particularly during adolescence. In most modern societies, parents show an interest in and concern for the sexual activities of their children, something they do not do in most “primitive” societies. In modern Islāmic societies and in modern India, as in some other parts of the world, parents have the duty to ensure that their children find suitable wives or husbands, and even the children recognize this. Yet in modern Western societies the practice of parental matchmaking is regarded by children as interference in their affairs. Even before marriage, they begin to assert their independence, which, arguably, was instilled in them by their parents themselves in the socialization process.

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