Study on marriages with children - but strong criticism of second wave feminism...

[Tinselperion]

I was sent this study about the factors that help marriages stay strong when kids come along - a good summary of the study here. I thought it was mostly no brainer kind of stuff but it's always interesting when academic research confirms it after controlling for factors like socio-economic background, age, education, ethnicity etc.

The most interesting finding in my opinion is on p.38 about generosity. It states that the 1960s and 70s saw a rejection of what was at the time an expectation that all the generosity in a marriage should be proffered by women alone, and that second wave feminism advocated a more individual attitude within marriage as a reaction to these sexist expectations on women. However it goes on to say that this more individual attitude caused marriages to become more susceptible to divorce.

This study finds that in fact marriages are happier and more likely to stay together not if women throw off 1950s expectations of wifedom, but if men adopt the same expectations - so both spouses make a regular, overt effort to "serve" the other (the study gives the examples of a spirit of service, frequent displays of affection, a willingness to forgive the faults and failings of one?s spouse, shared housework, and little things like making a cup of coffee, giving a back rub...)

I'm in two minds about the "blaming" of second wave feminism here. On one hand I really worry it sort of blames the victims somehow and gives feminist bashers a stick to beat women with ("this study says feminism causes divorce, so women should go back to the kitchen sink"). I also instinctively don't like the fact that it seems to be saying that I as a woman should be behaving like a 1950s housewife...(maybe I am reading more into this than I should).

On the other hand it is saying that that to strengthen marriages, both spouses regardless of gender should adopt the behaviours that were previously expected only from women in traditional gendered marriage roles.

Anyway I'm in a muddle in my own head about it - like the fact that in the strongest marriages, equal expectations should made of both partners but really don't like the bashing of second wave feminism to get to that conclusion (and don't know enough to know whether this is legitimate bashing or not).

Sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to reading it when I get the chance.

Well second wave feminists would probably be very glad to hear that the result of their movement was more divorce. Why should women stay in an oppressive institution?

The question would be why is it important to strengthen marriages? Who benefits from that? Marriage is an institution that was designed specifically for men to own women and children. It still is in many parts of the world. It's why rape within marriage was legal until very recently, because it's not possible to rape your own possession. Wives still do the majority of domestic work and childcare and are expected to sexually service husbands - we see that frequently on Mumsnet. We also see the belief that the relationship is more important than a woman's own well being, which keeps women in relationships that they should have been free of long before.

Marriage studies in the US is a very conservative reactionary area, all about fitting women back into the oppressed box which they were busy trying to escape. I think it started in the 40s or 50s so it's not surprising that they are promoting 50s housewifery.

Isn't the evidence usually better outcomes for children? Although that always seems a bit unfair, even when researchers control for poverty, the alternatives to marriage or similar are not really normal enough yet so it always seems a bit premature to conclude that such a set up is best. Bit like the criminalization of prostitution, these changes take a very long time.

There's also not one mention of domestic violence and rape in that article, despite the fact that within marriage is where a woman is most likely to experience those things.

thunderbolts I read the study as someone who is married and was looking to the study for ways to strengthen and maintain that marriage once we have kids.

Setting aside whether or not marriage is a good setup in and of itself which is beyond the scope of this study, what I find interesting is that it's identified that strong marriages require certain aspects of 50s housewifery to be performed by both partners equally. ie. both partners should go out of their way to serve the other, share housework equally, make frequent displays of affection and show forgiveness of the others' faults and failings.

(This is actually something I find best modelled in my queer friends' relationships as they feel more free to create their own roles.)

I read it as a radical feminist.

I'd disagree that whether marriage is a good set-up is beyond the scope of the study, in fact that study takes that as it starting point, that marriage is an unequivocal good and must be strengthened and reinforced. Which is also where its arguments fall down. Yes second wave feminists had good reasons to criticise marriages and think that women should escape them - for starters the rape within marriage right I mentioned earlier. At the time of second wave feminism men could do that to their wives if they wanted to. Why would any sane humane human being support an institution like that?

Thing is though, I don't see why people should be working to keep marriages strong, the focus should be on marriage being a mutually beneficial and pleasant arrangement in the first place. So making sure you are in a good place to be having a relationship before getting into one, society not accepting abusive or manipulative behaviours as normal part of dating or "the game/the rules" or whatever. Marriage being something you enter into because you genuinely want to grow old with that person. Marriage not being the only broadly acceptable option for companionship in adulthood/old age, so more mutual housing, house shares between people or families.

I just find it bizarre - surely if you love, respect and care for someone, the things like making them drinks, complimenting them, being affectionate, not using your own moods as an excuse for being a dick, generally trying to make the other's life a bit nicer, etc etc, all that would just come naturally. So why is it being given as advice? It only needs to be advised if it's not happening by itself, and if it isn't, then I question the validity of that marriage, TBH.

I wouldn't want displays of affection and "serving" the other if it wasn't genuine, anyway.

They also mention "faith" as a factor in holding marriages together. That's another patriarchal can of worms in itself.

Marriage does not = best outcomes for children even if you control for poverty.

On the contrary, if you control for poverty, in the vast majority of studies that have been done, marriage gives no better outcome than not being married.

If a mother has a degree, then even poverty doesn't screw up children of non-married parents.

Most accurately - marriage equals best outcomes for men.

Globally and historically marriage has been terrible both for women and children, especially girl children who were owned by their fathers.

Non-married parents living separately? that is surprising and encouraging

(surprising because everything is set up that way, and everything around it, doing things differently is difficult)

Yes it is isn't it. Although whether it will continue to be true when more people have degrees, remains to be seen. At the mo, having a degree implies a level of education and culture which seems to protect from the whole range of disadvantage that is usually cited when talking about children in lone parent households - ill healthy, criminality, truancy, lack of qualifications etc. Which is why some universities talking about positive discrimination for children from poorer families, would want to know whether you come from a family where the parent/s have a degree as they would not be included in the group which should be positively discriminated for, however poor they were. Poverty alone it seems, isn't enough to lead to bad outcomes - it's poverty plus lack of education.

I wonder as well how much the degree thing is also to do with the fact that if you do a degree, at least in the UK, you live away from your parents for three years. Whereas most people I know who didn't do degrees ended up living at home with parents until they moved in with a partner, so they never really learned the benefits of controlling their own environment.

A lot of people stay at home or at least return "home" when doing a degree though. Also student living is very different from a "real" move away from home. Certainly in terms of cost and responsibility and having an actual timetable/schedule.

The majority of students don't live at home full time, though. I do agree it's very different from living properly independently (to be fair I never suggested it was the same ...). I just reckon it might be one of the factors aside from education that could be taken into account.

I was thinking about simple stuff like that you learn you can make your own rules about when you eat and when you put your laundry on and so on ... it seems on MN and from reading Wifework that these things are pretty important and in lots of marriages women are still falling in with rules and chores that are far more than what they'd do if they lived alone and/or didn't feel they were being judged on the state of their homes.

I'm not sure what poverty/education link is here though, to be honest? I know that if people come from poverty they often don't have as many educational aspirations but lack of money doesn't put them at a disadvantage.

If you have no money but want to go into education, you can acquire a grant based on your household income... then ontop of that you can get a loan should you need it. If you have some kind of disability like dyslexia, you can get additional grants. I think the reason most people don't is because of their nurturing.

Well it depends what you mean by living I suppose. The vast majority of students onto go to Uni around 3-4 days a week and have a student loan and/or grants to sustain their outgoings. On to of this, even when they don't live with their parents full time, they visit home on weekends and stay there during christmas and summer breaks. Granted living as a student is different than living with Mum and Dad but I'd place it on a scale of:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

1= At home with parents
10 = Self-sustained, living in your own house
4 = Student living.

You dig it?

Also, just a note, from my perspective the more recent history, divorce ends up a lot worse for the Dad, certainly if children are involved.

Sorry, hit enter a little too soon there, the last line was in reference to "Globally and historically marriage has been terrible both for women and children, especially girl children who were owned by their fathers."

We have really different experiences of students, I think. I expect both happen in different places. Frankly 3-4 days at university and home for the weekend sounds like a waste of the loan to me.

But anyway, my reason for bringing it up is that I'd like to think that Higher Education isn't the silver bullet for preventing bad outcomes in marriage and for mums. It seems kind of absurd that it should be and a sign of how skewed our society is.

One thing that occurred to me - thinking about people I know who did/didn't go to university and the other differences than education between them - was to do with how you get to control your environment. I know women who've never lived alone and in the main, they are more likely to be doing huge amounts of housework for their parents than women who've had the experience of living in their own place with no-one to answer to than themselves. And IMO this housework stuff isn't a trivial, icing-on-the-cake issue, it's a huge issue that has to do with power balances.

I could be totally wrong though, just trying to resist the idea that it's really Higher Education itself that has this effect. Apart from anything else it is too easy, if we stop with that observation, to fall back on the old 'educated mothers are good, uneducated mothers are bad' stereotype which is IMO pretty poor.

Btw, I think it makes perfect sense that if marriage has historically been bad for women and children (it has, and often still is), divorce is worse for men, doesn't it? Men (on average) get much of the benefit of marriage so lose out when they get divorced. The solution would be to work out more equal partnerships, I think, not to assume that women losing out during marriage and men losing out after divorces is somehow balancing each other out and therefore ok (which sometimes seems to be the assumption people work with I find!).

Probably. In Wales (where I live) most students were about 4 days a week. I only had to turn up, and my fellow students, 3 days a week to lectures on our course. Though personally I turned up 5 days a week to do lab work and stuff... although not everyone did that.

Well the loan can be for for a variety of things. Most of us on computing courses needed to buy decent computers, so as a student that's pretty much a loan.

I suppose higher education shares some values with marriage? Like commitment, ability to understand someone of different opinion... I find a lot of people who have gone into work first and not education find it exceedingly difficult to appreciate someone else's point of view, or at the very least, accept someone else can have a different view - even if you think it's stupid. Though I expect this kind of education/marriage relationship is very broad and you can get these values from other places.

There is an odd balance with the "marriage worse for woman, divorce worse for men" in the same "You hit me so I hit you" kind of way. Really speaking it should be mutual for both and as least "damaging" as possible or working for a "no one hitting anyone"-if that's not pushing my analogy too far.

It's possible higher education shares some values with a good marriage.

But honestly, if these values are so important and so beneficial to children whose parents have them, isn't it awful they're not being taught earlier on?

If we did that, instead of saying 'marriage is a great structure for parenting .... wealth is great ... higher education is great' we could isolate whatever actually helps women, and stop pushing people into patterns that may suit children but don't always suit parents.

I do definitely remember there being a corrolation between marrage and education in terms of performance in the children. Children from a marrage generally perform better in school and such. I honestly don't have the figures with me, I'll try and dig them up... (I'm in work at the moment). At any rate, it basically said you are more likely to have a higher performing child if you are married, believe it or not...

Now that's not to say marrage is the solution. To me it says there is a downfall in support for lone or seperated parents... and in turn a pressure to remain married.

I think we're miscommunicating somehow here.

I believe you there's a correlation between marriage and education in terms of performance in the children.

I just find this worrying and far from ideal.