I’m reading a good book about the history of marriage and the changing roles of husband and wives.
Traditionally, the husband has been the breadwinner and the wife has been in charge of raising the children, cleaning, cooking, etc. Even in the working couples I know, there seems to be a clear difference in the wife role and the husband role.
Not all, but most of the heterosexual couples I know, it’s the wife who is mostly responsible for child care and housekeeping, when a child gets sick, it’s the wife who stays home from work, however many husbands today do help a lot more.
Now, to show my ignorance, how does this work with homosexual couples ? Is there a clear “husband” and “wife” ?
Some take roles that would match “traditional” gender roles. Other couples (just like many hetero couples) share the work.
I’m straight. In my house:
Both of us hold jobs outside the home
Both of us share childcare
Both of us do laundry
Both of us cook
Both of us clean (as does the housekeeper)
We pay someone to mow the lawn
We hire someone when things need to be painted or fixed.
But most importantly, I’m on top during sex. Does that make me the “husband?”
I do know one lesbian couple who are kind of the stereotypical “husband” and “wife.” I worked with one of them, and she would say things like, “Oh, I have to get home, or [partner] will kill me!” They had a daughter, and her partner was the one who had borne the child, and stayed home to take care of her. They’re the only gay couple I’ve known who were like that, however.
It used to be in lesbian couples there was a much more clearly defined “butch” and “fem” dynamic. Butches were the “husbands” and fems were the “wives.” Each would take on the traditional duties associated with those roles. The butch-fem dynamic has broken down over the last several decades and doesn’t really hold true as a rule of thumb any longer. I’m unaware of a similar butch-fem dynamic among gay male couples, although there is a top-bottom dynamic in sex (which does not necessairly correspond to “husband” and “wife” either in or out of the bedroom).
Anyway, so no, there is not necessarily a “husband” and “wife” in a same-sex relationship, although individual couples may certainly define themselves in those terms and that’s perfectly legitimate.
Biology can sometimes be a viable explanation for “roles”. A lesbian couple I know have a daughter, the result of a pregnancy of one partner via a sperm bank. As far as their daughter is concerned, it is all about the “na-na’s”. Her birthmother has the lactating breasts, and the lactating breasts are a non-negotiable requirement of the child for naptime. The non-birthmother has breasts, but the child cannot be duped into buying into them as the real deal, so they spend quality time together dancing to scratchy old records instead.
Not strictly “traditional” roles persay, but those are the closest examples adopted by this particular family that I can think of.
I think it comes down to who is better at what. My SO used to hate to cook so I did most of it. Now he likes to cook, has bought a lot of cookbooks and experiements with new things all the time. Now he does most of the cooking.
He was never handy with electrical equipment…thus it is my job to hook up computers, stereos, dvd’s etc. and fix them if something breaks.
He is more of the repair-the-house guy…he is the first to run to get a screwdriver or hammer to fix something.
I always earned a bit more money than he did, and especially since he was seriously ill awhile back (all is well now), so I guess I am the main “breadwinner” at this time. I also do all the bills and make the phone calls if there is a problem. Then again, he is Mr. Neat Freak so you can come into our house any day of the week and the place is spotless.
But all in all, I think the traditional roles blur. It just depends on what someone is good at, and likes to do.
Anne Peplau, a social psycologist at UCLA has done several studies on same-sex couples. Her conclusion is that they are based more on “best friend” dynamics than traditional “husband-wife” dynamics. FWIW, there’s no decent research on homosexuals in couples before about 1975 (these studies mainly focused on the homosexual as an individual) so whether or not gay liberation and feminism had an impact how same-sex couples worked things out betweeen themselves will probably never really be known scientifically. My sense, after talking to lots of elderly queer folks, is that the pressure of being in a same-sex couple while trying to hide it at the same time either made it more of a “roommate” relationship, even in “butch-femme” lesbian relationships.
BTW the “best friend” dynamic is one where the division of household chores are discussed openly and pretty much shared on the basis of who likes to do it, who feels capable, is split (or ignored, hi honey) when neither party likes to do the work. The trend in younger heterosexual relationships is towards this model too, according to Peplau.
Personally that’s how we divvy things up. We consciously kept our finances separate, but we share the household expenses about 50/50 (roughly-- “hon, your card or mine this time?”) I cook because I love cooking, and usually she cleans up but I pitch in a lot. She washes the clothes because she’s convinced I’m a laundry dolt (she’s probably right). We both split the house cleaning, litterbox & other animals chores and whatever else needs doing. We both love handyman/electronics stuff, so we usually collaborate on that. We hire a guy to thoroghly clean the house about twice a month, and I used to do the gardening with her help but the old guy next door seems to have adopted our lawn.
There is a gay man in my office whose role in his permanent relationship is remarkably like mine in my marriage, where I am the wife. He seems to do his best to make almost everything his partner’s responsibility except for certain fun planning type things. Same here. This includes house work and pet care. It’s pretty weird, actually. If I was the role model for wives, he’d be the wife.
My partner and I have been together for 6 years. We both have very time-consuming jobs. We earn about the same amount, and we’re in the same field. We have no children. We both enjoy cooking but I have more energy for it after working all day, plus I have some dietary restrictions that add to the fun challenge of preparing a meal, so I usually make dinner. She enjoys arithmetic so she pays the bills. I’m better at remembering to take the cars in for oil changes. She’s better at keeping the shower clean. We both like to garden and we both like to travel. She likes to pack more clothing when we travel, but I like to buy travel-related goods, such as luggage and utility tools. We are both intelligent and attractive, though I hold the remote control more often. Hope that’s helpful.
