Weak men and disorderly women: divorce and the division of labor

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511495328.010

10 - Weak men and disorderly women: divorce and the division of labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2009

Steven L. Nock and

Margaret F. Brinig

Edited by

Antony W. Dnes and

Robert Rowthorn

Show author details

Steven L. Nock: Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
Margaret F. Brinig: Affiliation:
Professor of Law University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Antony W. Dnes: Affiliation:
University of Hertfordshire
Robert Rowthorn: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Book contents

Get access

Summary

There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things – their} occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women. … The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy which governs the manufactures of our age, by carefully dividing the duties of man from those of woman, in order that the great work of society may be the better carried on.

(De Tocqueville, 1835, ch. Ⅻ)

De Tocqueville's observations about the political economy of gender relations at the beginning of the nineteenth century reflected the prevailing patterns of employment; husbands were gainfully employed for pay, and wives cared for home and family (see also Brinig and Carbone, 1988). In the new millennium, this pattern no longer describes most American couples. Some writers have surmised that the divorce rate has increased because the modern marriage deal is unfair to women (Parkman, 1998), who must do “two shifts” – their labor force hours plus the hours of housework that remain (Hochschild and Machung, 1989).

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce , pp. 171 - 190

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511495328.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, Douglas (1992), “What Does She See in Him? The Effect of Sharing on the Choice of Spouse,” Economic Inquiry, 3(1), 57–67CrossRef Google Scholar

Becker, Gary S. (1973), “A Theory of Marriage, Part I,” Journal of Political Economy, 81(4), 813–46CrossRef Google Scholar

Becker, Gary S. (1974), “A Theory of Marriage: Part II,” Journal of Political Economy, 82(2), S11–26CrossRef

Becker, Gary S. (1975), Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Specific Reference to Education, 2nd edn., New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia University Press

Becker, Gary S. (1985), “Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor,” Journal of Labor Economics, 3, S33–58CrossRef

Becker, Gary S. (1991), A Treatise on the Family, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Becker, Gary, Landes, Elisabeth M., and Michael, Robert T. (1977), “An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability,” Journal of Political Economy, 85(6), 1141–87CrossRef Google Scholar

Berk, Sarah Fenstermaker (1995), The Gender Factory: The Apportionment of Work in American Households, New York: Plenum Press

Bianchi, Suzanne M. and Daphne, Spain (1996), “Women, Work, and Family in America,” Population Bulletin, 51(3), 2–48Google Scholar

Blau, Francine W. (1998), “Trends in the Well-Being of American Women, 1970–95,” Journal of Economic Literature, 36, 112–65Google Scholar

Brinig, Margaret F. (1994), “Comment on Jana Singer's Alimony and Efficiency,” Georgetown Law Journal, 82, 2461–79Google Scholar

Brinig, Margaret F. and Allen, Douglas W. (2000), “These Boots Are Made for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women,” American Law and Economics Review, 2, 126–69CrossRef Google Scholar

Brinig, Margaret F. and Carbone, June (1988), “The Reliance Interest in Marriage and Divorce,” Tulane Law Review, 62, 853–905Google Scholar

Bumpass, Larry L. and James A. Sweet (1995), “Cohabitation, Marriage and Union Stability: Preliminary Findings from NSFH2,” NSFH Working Paper No. 65, Madison, Center for Demography and Ecology

Bumpass, Larry, Castro, Teresa, and Sweet, James A. (1990), “Recent Trends in Marital Disruption,” Demography, 26(1), 37–52Google Scholar

Cohen, Lloyd (1995), “Rhetoric, the Unnatural Family, and Women's Work,” Virginia Law Review, 81, 2275–305CrossRef Google Scholar

Duncan, Beverly and Otis D. Duncan (1978), Sex Typing and Social Roles: A Research Report, New York: Academic Press

Goldscheider, Frances K. and Linda J. Waite (1991), New Families, No Families? The Transformation of the American Home, Berkeley: University of California Press

Gronau, Reuben (1980), “Home Production – A Forgotten Industry,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 62(3), 408–16CrossRef Google Scholar

Grossbard-Schechtman, Shoshana (1993), On the Economics of Marriage: A Theory of Marriage, Labor, and Divorce, Boulder, CO: Westview Press

Hadfield, Gillian K. (1993), “Households at Work: beyond Labor Market Policies to Remedy the Gender Gap,” Georgetown Law Journal, 82, 89–107Google Scholar

Hadfield, Gillian K. (1999), “A Coordination Model of Sexual Division of Labor,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 40, 125–53CrossRef

Hansen, Gary L. (1991), “Moral Reasoning and the Marital Exchange Relationship,” Journal of Social Psychology, 131, 71–81CrossRef Google Scholar

Hochschild, Arlie and Anne Machung (1989), The Second Shift, New York: Viking Penguin

Lennon, Mary Clare and Rosenfield, Sarah (1994), “Relative Fairness and the Division of Housework: The Importance of Options,” American Journal of Sociology, 100, 506–31CrossRef Google Scholar

Nock, Steven L. (1995), “Commitment and Dependency in Marriage,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57, 503–14CrossRef Google Scholar

Parkman, Allen W. (1992), No-Fault Divorce: What Went Wrong? Boulder, CO: Westview Press

Parkman, Allen W. (1998), “Why Are Married Women Working So Hard?” International Review of Law and Economics, 18, 41–9CrossRef

Regan, Milton C. (1999), Alone Together: Love and the Meaning of Marriage, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Rempel, John K., Holmes, John G., and Zanna, Mark P. (1995), “Trust in Close Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 95–120CrossRef Google Scholar

Shelton, Beth Ann (1992), Men, Women, and Time: Gender Differences in Paid Work, Housework and Leisure, New York: Greenwood Press

Silbaugh, Katharine (1996), “Turning Labor into Love: Housework and the Law,” Northwestern University Law Review, 91, 1–86Google Scholar

Smith, Bea (1990), “The Partnership Theory of Marriage: A Borrowed Solution Fails,” Texas Law Review 68, 689–743Google Scholar

Smith, Herbert L., Gager, Constance T., and Morgan, S. Philip (1998), “Identifying Underlying Dimensions in Spouses' Evaluations of Fairness in the Division of Household Labor,” Social Science Research, 27, 305–27CrossRef Google Scholar

Spain, Daphne G. and Suzanne M. Bianchi (1996), Balancing Act: Motherhood, Marriage, and Employment Among American Women, New York: Russell Sage Foundation

Thomson, Linda (1991), “Family Work: Women's Sense of Fairness,” Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181–96CrossRef Google Scholar

Tocqueville, Alexis de (1835), Democracy in America. New York: Vintage Books, ed. 1954

United States Department of Labor (1988), Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Employment, Hours and Earnings, Series ID: EEU80729004, etc

United States Department of the Census (1998), Statistical Abstract of the United States, Rockville, MD

Waldron, Jeremy (1988), “When Justice Replaces Affection: The Need for Rights,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 11, 625–47Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.