Conjugal roles are the roles of the man and woman [husband and wife] in the home.
There are two different types of conjugal roles that people can have:
When husbands and wives share housework and childcare, decisions and leisure time they have joint conjugal roles.
When husbands and wives do not share housework and childcare, decisions and leisure time they have segregated conjugal roles.
Sociologists want to look at how conjugal roles have changed over time in society. There is disagreement about this, some sociologists believe in the ‘new man’ – men who do housework and childcare, others say the new man does not exist – women still do most jobs in the home.
Does your family have a 'new man' in it? Try the following activity to find out...
Changing relationships within the family - the husband and wife
The pre industrial family
This family existed before the industrial revolution when people lived mainly in the countryside and worked on farms. All members of the family worked together. There was no housewife role at this time.
The industrial family This family existed after the industrial revolution when people moved to towns and cities to live and work. When children were prevented from working in factories, women became responsible for looking after them – this is how the housewife role developed. Conjugal roles were unequal. The man did the paid work and the woman looked after the home and children.
The modern family
The symmetrical family
Young and Willmott (1973) Young and Willmott say that the modern family has [click answers to find out!]
They call this family the symmetrical family – this means that the roles are more or less equal with men and women spending the same amount of time on tasks in the home.
Young and Willmott found the symmetrical family was common amongst middle class families but not working class families. However they believed that eventually the working class would become symmetrical.
Oakley studied 40 London housewives. 20 were middle class, 20 working class. Her findings are very different to Young and Willmott. She found: [click answers to find out!]
Oakley says that the symmetrical family does not exist and that families are still patriarchal [male dominated].
