MARRIAGE

Marriage

Marriage

Introduction

Men and Women, and especially husbands and wives, need to have equality in their marriages and relationships so that their commitment can last forever. Many women today are being torn apart by the conflicting ideas of what they should be according to the standards of the society they were raised in and what they believe they could be according to their own vision. As women are becoming less and less satisfied with simply being a mother, they begin to expand themselves into the workplace.

In the past the woman held the role of a mother and a caretaker, making sure that the family's internal needs were met. She also maintained the majority of the daily household chores. The society in which women were raised in the past, and to a lesser extent, today, tells them that they need to stay home and take care of the family; in essence, devote themselves to making their husbands happy. But what about making themselves happy? Many housewives begin to feel bored and unimportant because every day, they do the monotonous jobs of housework and child care.

The work that they do at home is not equally valued to the work of the husband at his paid profession; neither by society, nor the husbands themselves. In turn, these women do not have equal power within the family to make decisions. The fact that household work is not being acknowledged as valuable and important , and that women are not being recognized for their contributions, has caused women to become unhappy with the role of housewife.

Discussion

Long hours, no salary, isolation, boredom, and being assigned child rearing duties enforces the feeling that women are placed in the subordinate position. Wives are dissatisfied and emotionally injured by being constantly told by society and their husbands that they should hold a role that never allows them to be fully complete as person.( Bem, 1981)

Women now feel the need to develop in the marriage relationship as husbands have for centuries. The women are beginning to take on the role as the breadwinner, but unfortunately the majority of husbands are not taking on any additional family roles. Women who are in the workforce make only 70 percent of what men do. The women often find themselves working a double shift-- eight hours at the office, and another eight at home. Women in this situation are beginning to feel the stresses of an extra large workload. They can not take on the complete role as a housewife after a day's work at a paid profession. Without the necessary time needed to relax and focus on herself, the wife becomes stressed and burned out. Depression is a common result of the women being over worked. The more household tasks that the working wife has to do correlates inversely with her satisfaction in the marriage.

Men are responding to the changes very well. Husbands are beginning to realize that an equal partnered relationship can be very fulfilling from a economic point of ...