Search Results for: blog sorting out the gender roles in marriage

Marriage Advice: Different Styles of Discipline in Your Marriage

How you discipline your children or how you plan to discipline your children are not likely topics of discussion for two people planning to get married. If you did talk about this prior to getting married and worked out a number of these issues ahead of time, my hat is off to you. My husband and I were together for many years before we were married and our daughter arrived just shortly after our first anniversary. As an infant, discipline wasn’t really an issue – discipline doesn’t really start until your children are older. Discipline Can Make Your Marriage Bumpy … Continue reading →

Sorting Out the Gender Roles In Marriage

Less than two generations ago, the gender roles in a marriage and in parenting were pretty clearly defined. Dads went to work. Moms stayed at home. Wives may have worked prior to marriage, but typically they stayed home when children came. They spent a great deal of time in volunteer work and parent chaperoning. Today’s married couples and gender roles are less defined and while that lack of definition provides an immutable freedom in choices and options. This potpourri of roles and options is the catalyst for many problems, but it can also provide the solutions to those very problems. … Continue reading →

Men and Women Are from Earth

A study came out recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: “Men and Women Are from Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender.” The central hypothesis of the paper is that men and women actually aren’t all that different.  Many of the differences that we might demonstrate have more to do societal expectations than inherent biology. This isn’t the first study on the subject.  I recently read the book “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference,” by neuroscience psychologist Cordelia Fine.  In it she exposes noticeable trends in male vs. female psychology, both in … Continue reading →

Are There Such Things as Wifely Duties?

Yesterday a volunteering friend used the phrase “wifely duties.”  She did so somewhat in jest, but the phrase stuck with me.  I certainly think that I have duties to Jonathan, but I shudder at calling them wifely duties.  I don’t think these duties have anything to do with me being his wife, or rather, have anything to do with the fact that I’m the woman in the relationship. I’d like the phrases “spousal duties” or “partnerly duties,” better (if the latter was a real word).  I have certain duties to Jonathan because I am married to him, but gender roles … Continue reading →

Unpleasant Wedding Humor

I love injecting humor into weddings. The occasion can sometimes be taken too seriously, either made especially solemn or fraught with the nerves of invested parties that want everything to be perfect. So I’m all about taking things a little more lightly; my imagined and actual wedding invitations are proof of that. What I can’t get behind, however, is a certain brand of humor I often see or hear about at weddings or in the course of wedding planning. I hesitate to call it chauvinist or sexist but that’s ultimately what it is, or at least it springs from the … Continue reading →

Changing My Name

By now I’m sure that you can tell that feminist issues are a very big deal for me. It even took a bit of coaxing from my parents for me to walk down the aisle with my dad; I did it for him, because it was important to him, but I don’t like the idea of being passed off from one man’s hands to another. Yet one thing about my decisions related to my married life really stands out: I took my husband’s name. I’ll admit it rankled a little, just the idea that I erase a part of myself … Continue reading →

Who is the Husband and Who is the Wife?

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There once was no confusion about gender roles and the characteristics of men and women and wives and husbands. However it seems that since times have changed the roles that each partner in a couple plays is becoming more and more confusing. When discussing the male and female gender roles I am not referring to homosexual or same sex marriages. I am referring to the typical heterogeneous marriage that takes place between a man and a woman. At one point in time the woman was the caregiver. There was no question about who would cook supper or who would clean … Continue reading →

The Words and Wisdom of Gloria Steinem

Whether you agree with Gloria Steinem or not, her words are incredibly thought provoking. As a woman, a wife and a mother – I like the controversialist of her thoughts and statements. I like what they make me think about. In fact, I’m starting to think that I’m just an oddball because the more controversial and the more inflammatory the thoughts – the more I reaffirm my own beliefs and my own comfort level with my life and my choices in this life. Again, I’m probably just an oddball, but with this in mind. Here are some of my favorite … Continue reading →