The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (32 page)

tic sphere, the dual earner family might also lack the time and resources to

accomplish all necessary tasks. With the rise in women's labor market participa-

tion, there has been a decline in their hours spent on domestic tasks without a

commensurate increase by husbands. Assuming that all previous domestic tasks

were necessary, certain tasks, then, must remain undone. Although some tasks

like mopping the floor can be postponed, there is increasing concern that the

nurturing and care of children will become a place tò`cut corners,'' with

unknown deleterious effects. In her later work, Hochschild (1997) found

increasing numbers of parents working long hours at the office in order to

avoid the stresses of home and family.

Hertz's (1986) work on dual career couples stressed the difference between the

experiences of dual career couples and other dual earner couples. Her sample

included high-earning, career-driven couples who, rather than struggling over

domestic chores, delegated them to family outsiders ± nannies, housekeepers,

gardeners, and food service workers. In this manner, two demanding careers are

supported through the low-wage work of people outside the family. However,

for most dual earner families this type of extensive, external support is not

available. For this reason, some couples have reported greater marital happiness in a more traditional marriage because of less stress and conflict in the family.

Crouter and Manke's (1997) research supported the notion that couples reported

greater love and less conflict in a traditional marriage than in a marriage where both had high-status careers. However, couples who reported the least conflict

and the most love were partners who had lower levels of role overload ± their

careers were less ambitious, thus allowing for more time to fulfill family and

relationship needs.

Dual earner couples have more harmonious marriages when the division of

labor is fair (Hochschild, 1989; Schwartz, 1994), and those who reported lower

marital quality were more likely to report that the division of domestic labor was unfair (Gager, 1998). In fact, the growing resentment of wives in inequitable

marriages may be a factor in the rising divorce rate. The divorce rate doubled

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between 1970 and 1980 and women are usually the primary seekers of divorce.

In a survey of 600 couples filing for divorce, Levinger (see Hochschild, 1989)

found that the second most common reason why wives sought divorce (after

mental cruelty) was neglect of household and children. For middle-class women,

it was the most common complaint, cited by nearly half of women. Men also

cited neglect of household and children as a significant factor in seeking divorce.

Clearly, the battleground has been delineated; men and women are struggling

with what it means to participate in a new form of marriage with few models to

guide them. With women's growing economic self-sufficiency, abandoning

unfulfilling and unfair relationships has become a plausible and increasingly

common option.

Peer Marriage

Some couples have abandoned traditional roles and have attempted to creatè`fair'' marriages. A few studies have examined the lives of couples involved in equitable marriages where each person is responsible for the family economically, emotionally, and domestically. Because equitable marriages are statistically rare, studies are few and rely on non-random samples. Increasingly couples are

exploring more equitable relationships, particularly in the area of shared parenting. Perhaps more role models have become available or, as Risman (1998)

believes, younger, postfeminist couples more often see themselves as being

fulfilled only by a combination of career and parenting.

A common theme in egalitarian marriages is the significant cultural capital of

the wife (Hertz, 1986; Hochschild, 1989; Schwartz, 1994; Risman, 1998).

Regardless of career ambition, most women in ``peer marriages'' are the educa-

tional elite and many have rewarding jobs or careers. Perhaps the experience of

having significant cultural capital allows women to bargain for equity. Addi-

tionally, wives in these relationships do not emotionally hoard the children

(Hochschild, 1989; Schwartz, 1994; Risman, 1998) and are often the chief

advocator of equality. For a fair marriage to succeed, men and women must

both contribute significantly economically if men are to contribute emotionally

and domestically. Although Schwartz (1994) found couples who regarded each

other's contributions to relationship and family as equal despite their traditional division of labor, it was the exception rather than the rule.

In general, the literature indicates that achieving an equitable marriage relies on men's willingness to give up the power and position of head of the household.

Risman points out that many women in `ùnfair'' marriages are like the women

in these equitable marriages ± assertive, ambitious, not passive ± and do not use the domestic sphere as a site to strengthen their identity as women. However, the key seems to lie in men's ability to redefine masculinity as including success and involvement in both the occupational and domestic spheres. If it were up to

women, there would be many more equitable marriages, but it depends on men's

willingness to give up male advantages in relationship and family structures.

Schwartz (1994) outlines both the advantages and challenges of egalitarian

marriages. An outstanding feature of egalitarian or peer marriage is the

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opportunity for ``deep friendship,'' an uncommon friendship shared by equals

who hold each other in mutual high regard. Risman (1998) corroborates this

tendency toward closeness; most couples voluntarily identified their partners as their closest friends. Egalitarianism, then, provides an opportunity for deeper

intimacy and greater commitment. When partners define each other as irreplace-

able and become so interdependent, marital dissolution becomes increasingly

unlikely. If a decline in economic interdependency is responsible for the current high divorce rate, perhaps increasing emotional and domestic interdependency

will help to sustain marital cohesion.

The costs of equality in marriage are mostly external ± the response of the

dominant culture to breaking with tradition and the subsequent internalized

messages about what it means to be a successful man or woman. Friends, co-

workers, and family may be unsupportive of `ìnappropriate'' gender roles and

may view the husband as faltering in his economic obligations or the wife as

asserting control in areas where she should not legitimately have power, such as financial decision-making. On a personal level, it may be hard for career-oriented men and women to watch others gain career prestige while their

ambition is tempered by shared family obligations. Indeed, the identity of men

and women in egalitarian marriages may be challenged, since the usual gendered

definitions of success may not be available to them.

A particular challenge for egalitarian marriages is a problem also commonly

faced by lesbian couples who generally are committed to egalitarian relationships (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983). Sexual intensity in egalitarian relationships often diminishes because of the priority of friendship in the relationship.

Since much of thè`charge'' in sexual relations is based on power and dominance,

an egalitarian relationship, particularly among heterosexuals, may have a diffi-

cult time retaining passion. The egalitarian couple is in a double bind: using

power and domination may be problematic ideologically, but refraining from

using it may lead to a feeling of having sex with your best friend. The level of intimacy between these close friends can lend itself to an `ìncest taboo,'' a feeling that sexual passion is inappropriate in the relationship. Egalitarian couples make a special effort to create a sexual life that is separate from their daily fusion of care taking and home making. Some couples accomplish this by banning talk of

children and work, others preserve eroticism by introducing more fantasy into

their love making and adopting sexual personas that are greatly different from

their day-to-day selves.

The most remarkable aspect of egalitarian marriages is their rarity. Risman

found that after she recruited seventy-five potential egalitarian couples, only

fifteen actually qualified by equally sharing financial and domestic responsibilities. The paucity of couples available speaks to the difficulty of reaching the goal of egalitarian marriage, particularly when wives have not accumulated considerable cultural capital. Over time, though, there has been notable progress in both the quality and numbers of egalitarian relationships. Studies from the early

seventies found the ideology of equality, but not the practice; research in the

eighties found couples who were becoming increasingly equal, but in which men

still relied on women for emotional tasks, scheduling, and organizing, and

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wardrobe management (Risman, 1998). Risman in her interviews in the nineties,

however, found couples who never questioned women's equality or the appro-

priateness of egalitarian marriage and shared parenting. Perhaps couples are

now finding a few role models and increased support for egalitarian relation-

ships and shared parenting. Although these couples offer a vision of what

marriage could look like, for the most part women are still largely responsible

for household tasks and remain dissatisfied with an unequal division of labor.

Marital Communication

A further area of sociological exploration has been the study of communication

patterns in couples, both how they are related to gender and power, and how

they predict the success or failure of the relationship. Much research in couples'

communication has been focused on delineating the differences between a mas-

culine communication culture and a feminine communication culture (Wood,

1996). Men generally use communication to achieve instrumental goals, estab-

lish individual status and authority, and compete for attention and power.

Women use communication to build connections with others, to include others,

to cooperate, to show interest, and to support others (Wood, 1996). These

differential conversational goals mean that men and women can choose both

different topics and different interactional styles in conversation. For instance, women tend to discuss feelings and relationship issues in order to establish

intimacy, whereas men prefer to discuss external topics and avoid personal

topics. Women are more involved listeners, providing eye contact, facial expres-

sions, and vocal feedback, whereas men engage much less actively in listening.

Gendered differences in communication styles can lead to relationship conflicts

between heterosexuals who use gendered strategies to create intimacy and

closeness ± women by talking, listening, and focusing and men through sharing

activities or performing caring tasks. These differential gender patterns of communication are the basis of many popular relationship self-help books that

attempt to give people, usually women, tools tò`translate'' the other sex's

language and behavior.

Further research has added to a better understanding of communication

dynamics in couples. Fitzpatrick and Mulac (1995) have found that although

there are objective gendered language differences, these differences are subtle.

They prefer to think of communication styles as gender preferential rather than

gender distinct because differences within sexes and between sexes vary widely.

Additionally, they find that where women's style remains fairly constant, men's

communication style is both flexible and contextual. Men maintain the male

interaction style, including more interruptions, directives, and sentence initial conjunctions/fillers (`Òkay, the first thing we should do . . . '') when interacting with male or female strangers. However, when interacting with a spouse, men

often conform to their wives' gender preferential language, using such strategies as questions, tag questions (`` . . . , isn't it?''), justifiers, intensive adverbs (``very,''

``really''), and personal pronouns. While men do seem to maintain distance and

autonomy in stranger interactions, they, too, seek connection and intimacy

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through communication with spouses. Incidentally, these findings are particular

to casual, low-key conversation; conflict between spouses often generates the

most substantial gender differences in communication, as men tend to distance

while women pursue interaction and intimacy.

One of the advantages of research involving relationships other than marriage,

such as cohabitation and same-sex relationships, is that it can provide a more

lucid examination of the conflation of gender and power. For instance, same-sex

relationships allow the issues of power to become more evident in the absence of gender difference (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983). In their overview of research

on same-sex partnerships, Rutter and Schwartz (1996) report that both gender

and power have strong, separate influences on communication styles and that

power rather than gender is a better predictor of ``gendered'' communication