Jaymie B

On Women and Marriage

By Jaymie B. Gross

Shows like "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver" conjure images of typical 1950’s family life. In subsequent decades, this traditional nuclear family ideal has declined, and been replaced with less traditional family structures. High rates of divorce, single headed households, cohabitation, childless couples, and unmarried adults are proliferating in the place of traditional families. As the family structure changes, so does the role of women in society. The modern family has resulted in the modern woman, one of financial and social independence, free of stigmatizing traditional gender roles. Women are no longer confined to roles of wives and mothers. Instead the decline of the family has encouraged women to explore their options outside the household, in the labor force and social domain. Within this paper I will examine the decline of the traditional family unit and its role in creating the modern woman.

The traditional family of the 1950’s was patriarchal. It was headed by a married father and mother unit. More than likely the father worked and the mother stayed at home to raise the children. Her responsibilities covered all areas of domesticity: cleaning, cooking, entertaining, and childbearing. Women were financially dependent on their husbands, which tended to create power dynamics in these traditional families. This era highly discouraged women from engaging in career activities or personal pastimes that could deter away from familial obligations. The ideal American Family emulated "Ozzie and Harriet". However the trend away from this nuclear family began in the early 1960’s with the women’s movement.

Families don’t look like they did in the 1950’s anymore. It is significant to note how different the institution of family looks now and how American families have changed. First, fewer people are driven to marry in the same way as before. People are marrying at older ages, getting more divorces, having fewer children, and frequently abstaining from marriage at all. These overall trends indicate significant changes in the family structure since the 1950’s. Family has declined in three key areas: demographics, institutional, and cultural.

The demographic changes to the traditional family are profound. First, the size of a traditional family is smaller. Women are having fewer children, because childbearing as an ideal and practice has lost popularity. In 1950 the average American woman had 3.7 children. Today (1990), Women are having nearly half as many children, 1.9 kids per woman on average. One of the reasons for this change is that women are waiting longer to have children. Perhaps because women are beginning to explore other roles before settling into motherhood. Also, it has been noted that amorous feelings about motherhood are declining. From 1957 to 1976 the percent of adult women who believed having children would fulfill their lives goals went from 58% to 44% (Popenoe 530). Family groups are not as much a demographic reality as they were during the 1950’s, and the family groups that are part of it are smaller in size.

As an institution, the family has begun to disintegrate. Individual family members are starting to have more autonomy, and therefore not behaving as a cohesive group. Women who are pursuing their own careers have broken with the traditional economic dependence of the 1950’s. For them marriage is no longer a necessary institution for posterity. "This means that wives are less likely to stay in bad marriages for economic reasons" (Popenoe 536). Therefore, the breakdown of economic interdependence has created a climate for "weaker marital units as measured by higher rates of divorce and separation" (Popenoe 536).

Finally, the cultural attachment to the traditional family is no longer part of the American fabric. Today, people view family in a different way. As a cultural value, the strong self has replaced the strong family. No longer do we as Americans focus on the prosperity of our family unit, working together for mutual benefit. Instead, people focus on individual achievement. While there are those who still believe in family values, little is being done as a society to foster stronger family units. "Americans today are less willing than ever to invest time, money and energy in family life" (Popenoe 538).

The evidence provided paints a seemingly negative picture of the declining family. However, it is important to understand that along with the decline in the family structures of the past, we have also witnessed a decline in family authority. Family authority associated with the traditional nuclear family was patriarchal. "Almost all of the family decline alarmists over the years have been males, and their main concern has been the decline of male authority in the home" (Popenoe 539). Traditional family structures promoted the subservience of women. So, consequently, the decline of such structures has elevated the status of women from under their traditional roles. No longer are women "wholly owned appendages of their fathers, husbands, or some other male relative" (Popenoe 539). Women are proud citizens of America, who since the decline of family have been more readily able to exercise their equality of rights.

In her article The Economics of Motherhood, Judith Bruce explains the family structures of developing nations. She points out that the widely accepted assumption "that a mother’s participation the labor force compromises the wellbeing of her children," is irrelevant (Bruce 28). In developing countries, women have provided for their children in the home as well as contributing to the wage earning. There is no choice for these women, because the family needs the additional income to survive. Therefore, Bruce points out that wage-earning has been a traditional role of women, so there is little reason to believe it would compromise the care women provide their children. Bruce goes on to highlight the inequalities which still persist. As women function as wage earners, they are still responsible for their domestic work. Therefore, they have less leisure time than men, and "motherhood increases women’s overall work load enormously" (Bruce 28). Women, who live with a husband, usually work 13 hours more than their husbands do (Bruce 28). Inequalities are perpetuated by the traditional family structure.

Traditional family structures are still around today in several developing countries and they tend to devalue women. In such cultures, women are forced to work for the family inside and outside the home. Yet they are expected to allow their husbands to control their incomes, which means women are forced to give larger portions of their earnings to the family than their husbands. "Although we commonly attribute women’s economic disadvantages to labor market and wage discrimination, severe limits are often imposed by the family system" (Bruce, pg. 33). Men deprive their wives of economic independence, which perpetuates their inferior status.

Family structures force women to assume paradoxical roles, as women and mothers. First, families depend on women to provide a large portion of the family income, while simultaneously expecting women to fulfill their familial needs. However, the family structure undermines a woman’s ability to perform such tasks diligently, because it creates power structures that turn women into dependents themselves. Women in the US have been able to shed these traditional constrictions. As the family has declined, women have shined. Now they are fully engaged in the work force and gender equality is becoming a reality ever day. Families are still an important part of American life, however their shape is much different than it was in the 1950’s.

Bibliography:

David Popenoe, "American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal" in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 1993, pp. 527-542.

Judith Stacey, "Good Riddance to "The Family": A Response to David Popenoe" in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 1993, pp. 545-547.

Judith Bruce, "The Economics of Motherhood", in Families in Focus: New Perspective On Mothers Fathers and Children, Judith Bruce, Cynthia B. Lloyd and Ann Leonard (editors) Population Council, New York, 1992, Chapter 2, pp. 25-48.