CONJUGAL ROLES

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Functionalists believe in traditional gender roles- as do the New Right

Parsons claimed women naturally had the 'expressive role' whilst men had the 'instrumental role'. Many argue that conjugal roles are biologically determined e.g. high levels of oestrogen in women and testosterone in men make them more suitable for certain roles.

Domestic division of labour- the way in which tasks in the home are divided between men and women.

Symmetrical family- one in which the conjugal roles are more equal.

Dual worker families- where both partners in a family work outside the home.

Dual burden- woman is working outside the home as well as having to do the housework.

Bott (1957) distinguished between segregated and joint conjugal roles.

  • Segregated conjugal roles- clear diffrentiaton of tasks e.g .men are breadwinners and women are hosuekeepers. Their interests, leisure, activities and social life are mostly separate.
  • Joint/integrated conjugal roles- carried out together with a minimum of task diffrentiation and less separation of interests- with joint decision-making.
  • Bott noted that in families, basic division of labour in which the man was primarily responsible for supporting the family financially, woman was primarily responsible for housework and childcare. She found that friends and kinship networks were influential and if…

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