Marriage, a History (73 page)
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Authors: Stephanie Coontz
26
Mary Ann Glendon,
The Transformation of Family Law
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 88. On Europe, Gisela Bock,
Women in European History
(Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 248; Bonnie Smith,
Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1989), p. 492.
Mary Ann Glendon,
The Transformation of Family Law
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 88. On Europe, Gisela Bock,
Women in European History
(Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 248; Bonnie Smith,
Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1989), p. 492.
27
Sara Evans,
Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century’s End
(New York: Free Press, 2003), pp. 1-20; John Ekelaar, “The End of an Era?,”
Journal of Family History
28 (2003), p.109. See also Lenore Weitzman,
The Marriage Contract
(New York: Free Press, 1981).
Sara Evans,
Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century’s End
(New York: Free Press, 2003), pp. 1-20; John Ekelaar, “The End of an Era?,”
Journal of Family History
28 (2003), p.109. See also Lenore Weitzman,
The Marriage Contract
(New York: Free Press, 1981).
29
Quoted in Michael Kimmell,
Manhood in America: A Cultural History
(New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 246.
Quoted in Michael Kimmell,
Manhood in America: A Cultural History
(New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 246.
30
Ladd-Taylor, “Eugenics,” p. 319.
Ladd-Taylor, “Eugenics,” p. 319.
33
Historian Rickie Solinger points out that while a whole set of public policy initiatives encouraged white women to relinquish their babies for adoption in the 1950s, legislators assumed black women would keep theirs and focused instead on preventing them from having more. Solinger,
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade
(New York: Routledge, 1992).
Historian Rickie Solinger points out that while a whole set of public policy initiatives encouraged white women to relinquish their babies for adoption in the 1950s, legislators assumed black women would keep theirs and focused instead on preventing them from having more. Solinger,
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade
(New York: Routledge, 1992).
34
Penalties were even more severe for men and women who acted on same-sex desires. During the 1950s there was a huge crackdown on the homosexual subcultures that had grown up in early-twentieth-century cities and gained more visibility during World War II. See Angus McLaren,
Twentieth-Century Sexuality
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999).
Penalties were even more severe for men and women who acted on same-sex desires. During the 1950s there was a huge crackdown on the homosexual subcultures that had grown up in early-twentieth-century cities and gained more visibility during World War II. See Angus McLaren,
Twentieth-Century Sexuality
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999).
35
Pierson,
“They’re Still Women,”
pp. 217-18; Veronica Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams: Women and the Suburban Experient,” in Strong-Boag and Anita Fellman, eds.,
Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 392.
Pierson,
“They’re Still Women,”
pp. 217-18; Veronica Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams: Women and the Suburban Experient,” in Strong-Boag and Anita Fellman, eds.,
Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 392.
37
Ibid., p. 32; Robert Rutherdale, “Fatherhood, Masculinity, and the Good Life During Canada’s Baby Boom,”
Journal of Family History
24 (1999), p. 367.
Ibid., p. 32; Robert Rutherdale, “Fatherhood, Masculinity, and the Good Life During Canada’s Baby Boom,”
Journal of Family History
24 (1999), p. 367.
39
Marilyn Van Derbur Atler, “The Darkest Secret,”
People
(June 10, 1991); Doss Darin,
The Magnificent Shattered Life of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee
(New York: Warner Books, 1995); Elizabeth Pleck,
Domestic Tyranny
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Linda Gordon,
Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, 1880-1960
(New York: Viking, 1988).
Marilyn Van Derbur Atler, “The Darkest Secret,”
People
(June 10, 1991); Doss Darin,
The Magnificent Shattered Life of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee
(New York: Warner Books, 1995); Elizabeth Pleck,
Domestic Tyranny
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Linda Gordon,
Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, 1880-1960
(New York: Viking, 1988).
40
Coontz,
The Way We Never Were,
p. 35; Leonore Davidoff et al.,
The Family Story
(London: Longmans, 1999), p. 215.
Coontz,
The Way We Never Were,
p. 35; Leonore Davidoff et al.,
The Family Story
(London: Longmans, 1999), p. 215.
41
Obituary for Coya Knutson,
New York Times,
October 12, 1996, p. 52; “Coya Knutson,” in Karen Foerstel,
Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 152-53.
Obituary for Coya Knutson,
New York Times,
October 12, 1996, p. 52; “Coya Knutson,” in Karen Foerstel,
Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 152-53.
42
Benita Eisler,
Private Lives: Men and Women of the Fifties
(New York: Franklin Watts, 1986); Friedan,
Feminine Mystique.
Benita Eisler,
Private Lives: Men and Women of the Fifties
(New York: Franklin Watts, 1986); Friedan,
Feminine Mystique.
43
Parsons, “The Kinship System of the United States”; Parsons, “The Normal American Family,” in Seymour Farber, Piero Mustacchi, and Roger Wilson, eds.,
Man and Civilization: The Family’s Search for Survival
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); Parsons and Bales,
Family, Socialization, and Interaction Processes.
For similar theories in British sociology, see Michael Young and Peter Willmott’s
The Symmetrical Family
(London: Pelican, 1973), pp. 28-30;
Family and Kinship in East London
(Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957); and
Family and Class in a London Suburb.
Parsons, “The Kinship System of the United States”; Parsons, “The Normal American Family,” in Seymour Farber, Piero Mustacchi, and Roger Wilson, eds.,
Man and Civilization: The Family’s Search for Survival
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); Parsons and Bales,
Family, Socialization, and Interaction Processes.
For similar theories in British sociology, see Michael Young and Peter Willmott’s
The Symmetrical Family
(London: Pelican, 1973), pp. 28-30;
Family and Kinship in East London
(Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957); and
Family and Class in a London Suburb.
45
Chapter 15. Winds of ChangeResearch since the 1960s confirms that Goode was right in noting the spread of the new marriage system to other industrializing countries, such as Japan. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Japan had comparatively high rates of divorce and extramarital births, and women played an important role in both the agricultural and the industrial labor force. But divorce and unwed childbearing decreased as Japan industrialized in the first third of the twentieth century, and after World War II, sociologist Yamada Masahiro argues, the “domestication of women” became national policy, with social welfare legislation, tax policies, and informal hiring practices all giving special advantages to families consisting of a salaried husband and a full-time housewife.
While less widespread than in the West, the number of Japanese marriages based on love rather than parental arrangement began to increase in the 1950s, as did the value that individuals placed on domesticity, a pattern that came to be called my-home-ism by the Japanese. Almost all women in the postwar era got married between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five and bore two or three children before they reached thirty.
Important cultural differences remained between male breadwinner marriages in the West and in Japan during the 1950s, however. The Japanese nuclear family ideal was more centered on the children than on the couple. In addition, the social responsibilities of Japanese salaried workers, on top of their long work hours, meant that wives and children often took their “family” meals without the husband present. In addition, ties to parents remained strong, inhibiting free choice of marriage partners and the development of a couple’s privacy after the wedding. Even today, older parents are much more likely to live with one of their married adult children in Japan than in Europe and North America. Furthermore, although the frequency of love matches grew rapidly after 1940, it was not until 1965 that the number of love matches exceeded the number of arranged marriages in Japan. Louise Tilly,
Industrialization and Gender Inequality
(Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1993), p. 38; Noriko Iwai, “Divorce in Japan,” in R. Robin Miller, ed.,
With This Ring: Divorce, Intimacy, and Cohabitation from a Multicultural Perspective
(Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 2001); Yamada Masahiro,
The Japanese Family in Transition
(Tokyo: Foreign Press Center, 1998); Yamada Masahiro, “The Housewife: A Dying Breed?”
JapanEcho
(April 2001), p. 56; Kathleen Uno,
Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999); Peter Stearns,
Gender in World History
(New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 108-10; Susan Mann,
East Asia (China, Japan, Korea)
(Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1999), p. 35; Gail Lee Bernstein, ed.,
Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Larry Carney and Charlotte O’Kelly, “Women’s Work and Women’s Place in the Japanese Economic Miracle,” in Kathryn Ward, ed.,
Women Workers and Global Restructuring
(Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1990).
Industrialization and Gender Inequality
(Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1993), p. 38; Noriko Iwai, “Divorce in Japan,” in R. Robin Miller, ed.,
With This Ring: Divorce, Intimacy, and Cohabitation from a Multicultural Perspective
(Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 2001); Yamada Masahiro,
The Japanese Family in Transition
(Tokyo: Foreign Press Center, 1998); Yamada Masahiro, “The Housewife: A Dying Breed?”
JapanEcho
(April 2001), p. 56; Kathleen Uno,
Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999); Peter Stearns,
Gender in World History
(New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 108-10; Susan Mann,
East Asia (China, Japan, Korea)
(Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1999), p. 35; Gail Lee Bernstein, ed.,
Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Larry Carney and Charlotte O’Kelly, “Women’s Work and Women’s Place in the Japanese Economic Miracle,” in Kathryn Ward, ed.,
Women Workers and Global Restructuring
(Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1990).
1
Frank Furstenberg, Jr., “Family Change and Family Diversity,” in Neil Smelser and Jeffrey Alexander, eds.,
Diversity and its Discontents
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Frank Furstenberg, Jr., “Family Change and Family Diversity,” in Neil Smelser and Jeffrey Alexander, eds.,
Diversity and its Discontents
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
2
Nena McNeil and George McNeil,
Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples
(New York: M. Evans, 1972); Shulameth Firestone,
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
(New York: William Morrow, 1970). For an account of the women’s movement, see Sara Evans,
Rising Tide: How Women Changed America at Century’s End
(New York: Free Press, 2003).
Nena McNeil and George McNeil,
Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples
(New York: M. Evans, 1972); Shulameth Firestone,
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
(New York: William Morrow, 1970). For an account of the women’s movement, see Sara Evans,
Rising Tide: How Women Changed America at Century’s End
(New York: Free Press, 2003).
6
McLaughlin et al.,
The Changing Lives of American Women,
p. 169; Cliff Jahr, “Anita Bryant’s Startling Reversal,”
Ladies’ Home Journal
(December 1980), p. 68.
McLaughlin et al.,
The Changing Lives of American Women,
p. 169; Cliff Jahr, “Anita Bryant’s Startling Reversal,”
Ladies’ Home Journal
(December 1980), p. 68.
7
Generally, the new ideas and behaviors were accepted first by people with other criticisms of the status quo, such as student activists. But they soon lost their early association with radicalism and even with secularism. In the 1960s, Catholics accepted the pill as readily as Protestants; Ronald Reagan, the first president to make family values a central campaign theme, was also the first divorced president in history; by the 1980s, acceptance of casual sex was as widespread among people who supported U.S. foreign policy as those who opposed it; and by the 1990s, evangelical Christians had as high a divorce rate as the population as a whole.
Generally, the new ideas and behaviors were accepted first by people with other criticisms of the status quo, such as student activists. But they soon lost their early association with radicalism and even with secularism. In the 1960s, Catholics accepted the pill as readily as Protestants; Ronald Reagan, the first president to make family values a central campaign theme, was also the first divorced president in history; by the 1980s, acceptance of casual sex was as widespread among people who supported U.S. foreign policy as those who opposed it; and by the 1990s, evangelical Christians had as high a divorce rate as the population as a whole.
8
Abraham Maslow,
Motivation and Personality
(New York: Harper & Row, 1954). On the dress rehearsal of the 1920s in terms of individualistic values and desires for sexual fulfillment, see Francesca Cancian,
Love in America: Gender and Self-Development
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Abraham Maslow,
Motivation and Personality
(New York: Harper & Row, 1954). On the dress rehearsal of the 1920s in terms of individualistic values and desires for sexual fulfillment, see Francesca Cancian,
Love in America: Gender and Self-Development
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
9
For an extended argument about how modernization and industrialization raise people’s expectations for personal satisfaction and individual autonomy, see Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris,
Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
For an extended argument about how modernization and industrialization raise people’s expectations for personal satisfaction and individual autonomy, see Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris,
Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
10
John Clausen,
American Lives: Looking Back at the Children of the Great Depression
(New York: Free Press, 1993). The quotes in this paragraph and the poll in the next paragraph are from Jessica Weiss,
To Have and to Hold,
pp. 108, 206, and note 7, p. 278 (see chap. 13, n. 29).
John Clausen,
American Lives: Looking Back at the Children of the Great Depression
(New York: Free Press, 1993). The quotes in this paragraph and the poll in the next paragraph are from Jessica Weiss,
To Have and to Hold,
pp. 108, 206, and note 7, p. 278 (see chap. 13, n. 29).
11
Barbara Ehrenreich,
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(New York: Anchor Press, 1983), pp. 12, 30; Keats, quoted in Donald Katz,
Home Fires
(New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 121.
Barbara Ehrenreich,
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(New York: Anchor Press, 1983), pp. 12, 30; Keats, quoted in Donald Katz,
Home Fires
(New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 121.
13
“ ‘It’s Good to Blow Your Top’: Women’s Magazines and a Discourse of Discontent, 1945-1965,”
Journal of Women’s History
8 (1996).
“ ‘It’s Good to Blow Your Top’: Women’s Magazines and a Discourse of Discontent, 1945-1965,”
Journal of Women’s History
8 (1996).
14
Andrew Cherlin, “Should the Government Promote Marriage?,”
Contexts
(Fall 2003); Weiss,
To Have and to Hold.
Andrew Cherlin, “Should the Government Promote Marriage?,”
Contexts
(Fall 2003); Weiss,
To Have and to Hold.
15
Maxine Virtue,
Family Cases in Court
(1956), quoted in Katherine Caldwell, “Not Ozzie and Harriet: Postwar Divorce and the American Liberal Welfare State,”
Law and Social Inquiry
23 (1998).
Maxine Virtue,
Family Cases in Court
(1956), quoted in Katherine Caldwell, “Not Ozzie and Harriet: Postwar Divorce and the American Liberal Welfare State,”
Law and Social Inquiry
23 (1998).
16
Mary Ann Glendon,
The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law, and Family in the United States and Western Europe
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
Mary Ann Glendon,
The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law, and Family in the United States and Western Europe
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
17
For discussion of the complex interaction between women’s employment and women’s rights described in the following paragraphs, see Janet Chafetz, “Chicken or Egg? A Theory of the Relationship between Feminist Movements and Family Change,” in Mason and Jensen,
Gender and Family;
Robert Jackson,
Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women’s Status
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); Julia Blackwelder,
Now Hiring: The Feminization of Work in the United States, 1900-1995
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997); Valerie Oppenheimer,
The Female Labor Force in the United States
(Berkeley: University of California Population Monograph Series, 1970); Alice Kessler-Harris,
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Cynthia Harrison,
On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women’s Issues, 1945-1968
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); William Chafe,
The Paradox of Change: American Women in the Twentieth Century
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Sara Evans, “The Rebirth of the Women’s Movement in the 1960s,” in Kathryn Sklar and Thomas Dublin, eds.,
Women and Power in American History, vol. 2: From 1870
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991). For a recent account of how changes in the 1950s undergirded the expansion of women’s work and the women’s movement after the 1960s, see Nancy MacLean, “Postwar Women’s History: The ‘Second Wave’” or the End of the Family Wage?” in Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig, eds.,
A Companion to Post-1945 America
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2002).
For discussion of the complex interaction between women’s employment and women’s rights described in the following paragraphs, see Janet Chafetz, “Chicken or Egg? A Theory of the Relationship between Feminist Movements and Family Change,” in Mason and Jensen,
Gender and Family;
Robert Jackson,
Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women’s Status
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); Julia Blackwelder,
Now Hiring: The Feminization of Work in the United States, 1900-1995
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997); Valerie Oppenheimer,
The Female Labor Force in the United States
(Berkeley: University of California Population Monograph Series, 1970); Alice Kessler-Harris,
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Cynthia Harrison,
On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women’s Issues, 1945-1968
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); William Chafe,
The Paradox of Change: American Women in the Twentieth Century
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Sara Evans, “The Rebirth of the Women’s Movement in the 1960s,” in Kathryn Sklar and Thomas Dublin, eds.,
Women and Power in American History, vol. 2: From 1870
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991). For a recent account of how changes in the 1950s undergirded the expansion of women’s work and the women’s movement after the 1960s, see Nancy MacLean, “Postwar Women’s History: The ‘Second Wave’” or the End of the Family Wage?” in Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig, eds.,
A Companion to Post-1945 America
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2002).
19
Hans-Peter Blossfeld, “Changes in the Process of Family Formation and Women’s Growing Economic Independence,” and Jenny de Jong Gierveld and Aat Liefbroer, “The Netherlands,” in Blossfeld,
New Role of Women: Family Formation in Modern Societies
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).
Hans-Peter Blossfeld, “Changes in the Process of Family Formation and Women’s Growing Economic Independence,” and Jenny de Jong Gierveld and Aat Liefbroer, “The Netherlands,” in Blossfeld,
New Role of Women: Family Formation in Modern Societies
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).
20
Susan Householder Van Horn,
Women, Work, and Fertility, 1900-1986
(New York: New York University Press, 1988); Lynn Weiner,
From Working Girl to Working Mother
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1985); Glendon,
Transformation of Family Law;
Woloch,
Women and the American Experience
(see chap. 10, n. 13).
Susan Householder Van Horn,
Women, Work, and Fertility, 1900-1986
(New York: New York University Press, 1988); Lynn Weiner,
From Working Girl to Working Mother
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1985); Glendon,
Transformation of Family Law;
Woloch,
Women and the American Experience
(see chap. 10, n. 13).
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