Karen Emmons
February 20, 1999
SOC 3723
Exam # ONE
Question 1-- Scanzoni’s model of marriage first appeared in America around the
industrial revolution, approximately 1840's-1850's. This model first made its appearance
because, for the first time in American history man could follow the Good Provider Role.
According to Bernard, the Bible is the beginning of the Good Provider Role. Passages like
Proverbs 31: 10-27, where the Bible discusses what a good woman should be. There are
passages that tell a man he should try to be more like God, God being the ultimate provider, has
laid the ground work for man to follow what has become know as the Scanzoni’s model of the
ideal marriage. This means that the husband was a good provider, that entailed he provided the
basic necessities that the family needed. For example, “the good provided was a family man... he
set a good table, provided a decent home, paid the mortgage, bought shoes, and kept his family
warmly clothed...financed education...made decent contributions to the church,” (Bernard). It
did not say anything about taking care of the children or cleaning the toilets. That was the
woman’s part in Scanzoni’s model. Wives were to birth babies, take care of the house and do the
things her husband asked. She must accept subordination to her husband’s authority, (Epstein).
This model worked because each sex knew what to do. Women could count on the house
payments being made and the husband knew his dinner would be on the table when he got home.
She also would be ready for sex that night, after she put the children to bed, if that was what he
wanted. Men did the work away from the home. “Women spun, wove, finished cloth, made it
into clothes... cooked, cleaned their houses and took care of babies,” (Epstein). Women did the
work in the home.
That was the ideal marriage. Bernard points out a very interesting view, “If in addition to
being a good provider, a man was kind, gentle, generous, and not a heavy drinker or gambler that
was frosting on the cake.” Men were not under obligation to provide love, or any other
emotional attention to the family. The reason I found this interesting is that during this time in
history men and women were not allowed to “steady date” and were not supposed to be left alone
together. It has been my experience that you do not really get to know another person, until you
can spend some time alone. If there are people around all the time it is easy to keep up the
appearances that you wish to portray. Anyone can act gentle, generous and kind with an
audience, but what happens when the audience is gone? I cannot imagine the gamble women had
to take when they got married. Even today, when it is okay by society to be alone with a man,
women often find themselves married to someone completely different from the one they were
dating. It must have been awful for women if they were not lucky enough to get the “frosting on
the cake.” Especially when the industrial revolution brought urbanization, which led to
privatization of the family. Privatization was where the industrialization of the economy meant
that families moved to the cities and there it was easier to manage the family when it was just a
smaller, nuclear unit. This meant women did not have extended family around. It was the
extended family that provided some comfort and safety if the husband did not come with any
“frosting.” Probably for many women, the privatization guaranteed the servitude that the
Scanzoni’s model needed to keep working. With no other family around, and not able to work
outside the home, made it difficult to get out of a marriage that had a husband that did not come
with any “frosting.”
The reason industrialization brought along urbanization, was because that was where the
“good jobs” were. They provided a decent salary, security and benefits. Husbands were able to
get a job with just a high school education and feel secure to buy a house because they would be
at that job for the next 30 years and would be able to afford the mortgage. Many of the jobs at
this time were not available to women. Some women did work but the majority of jobs were
away from the home and the number one job of a woman was to take care of the children. It is
difficult to raise the children and work in the factory. When America went to war, there was a
change in what was socially acceptable. Women were now allowed to work outside of the home
and let others watch and raise their children when it came to helping America be able to keep
their factories open. Women could not go and fight on the combat front, but they could “fight”
for America by keeping their jobs available. During the Civil war, and WWII many women had
to go to work while the men were fighting. With the Civil war things were changing with the
Scanzoni model of an ideal marriage. The model was not able to stay in some instances. Many
women had to take the role of head of household, or the provider role, because somewhere
between 1/5 to 1/3 of the men fighting in the Civil War did not come home. Also, during WWII
approximately 7 million women went to work in typically male jobs and at the end of the war
found themselves being told to go back home, the men were back. Many women were glad to be
able to go back home. It is difficult to work and take care of a family. There were a number of
women that preferred working. The autonomy of a paycheck is very appealing. With time more
and more women wanted to be able to work outside of the home.
Immediately following the end of the war many families did return to the Scanzoni’s
model of an ideal marriage. According to Rubin, “the post WWII era to the late 1960's and
1970's was a unique period in American history.” This was a time of great growth in the
economy and many families were still able to adhere to the Scanzoni’s model completely again
because everything was booming. Companies had jobs and factories had things to produce. The
thing is America is a market economy and when other countries got back on their feet in the late
1960's and early 1970's we found ourselves in some startling competition. America failed to see
that the things they were doing were going to hurt us once there was some competition in the
world again. America spent much of their time and assets investing in other companies in other
countries. According to Rubin this is called “paper entrepreneurialism,’ where you invest in
other companies rather than in producing goods and upgrading your own technology. The reason
this is a problem is if you are not keeping up with the competition in your goods, because you are
too busy investing in other businesses, the competition will soon surpass you in quality and the
ability to produce the goods cheaper. This hurt the economy in America in many ways. Other
companies were getting the international business deals we needed because they could do it
cheaper, faster and had better quality. For America to be able to compete in the slowing
economy they had to restructure the economy.
“Slow economic growth means loss of sales, loss of market position, and ultimately loss
of jobs,” (Rubin). This starts a deadly cycle. No jobs means no money to buy products, which
leads to more loss of sales which contributes to the slowing economy. Businesses needed to
figure out how to reduce costs and increase sales. One way to drop costs was to lay off unneeded
workers and to change from a manufacturing economy to a service production economy.
“Instead of investing in upgrading outdated technology or searching out new markets or cheaper
workers, employers in many instances transferred assets to financial and other service-sector
interests.”(Rubin). This was okay for the upper divisions of labor in the companies but to the
welder that had been doing that for the last 20 years, he found himself in the unemployment line.
In the 1970's Americans lost their good jobs. Many people found themselves without jobs and
no jobs available. Many of these people that were working at this time only had a high school
education. The service sector that was growing depends on specialization of skills that many
people have to go and get schooling past high school for. Jobs like banking, hairstyling, doctors
and lawyers need college degrees or at least technical schooling after high school. These people
had been working at the same job for 20 years and did not know how to do anything else. They
did not have a college education and many could not find a job. Rubin called these people
displaced workers.
The problem with society changing to a service sector economy was that historically most
service jobs are not considered ‘good jobs.’ Most service jobs are part time, don’t have benefits
and do not pay well. If you work really hard as a waitress you can make about $8.00 an hour
here in Stillwater on average. The problem was that most waitress jobs don’t let you work 40
hours a week because then they don’t have to provide health insurance and other benefits. If your
employer only lets you work 30 hours a week, after taxes you bring home about $900.00 a
month. Today it can be very difficult to pay your mortgage and other bills and keep your family
in the lifestyle they are accustomed. The most shocking part is that it can be done in Stillwater, it
would be difficult but not impossible, but there is no way you could support your family on
$900.00 a month in New York City! For many men trying to keep the Scanzoni model of an
ideal marriage was impossible. Unless you had the education to become a doctor or lawyer you
found yourself in positions that did not provide well. Men had a few choices of what to do now.
They could try to find a job that gave over time, could get a second job or they could let their
wives work. Many opted for choice 3. This was okay because many women wanted to work.
This was when many women wanted the equal opportunity to escape the housework. Plus the
jobs that were available were jobs that women already had the training for, being a waitress,
being a child day care worker (for those who both parents worked and needed a place to take the
children) or a hairstylist. These jobs were historically women’s work and many women had had
the chance to work before marriage or when the men were in war and really enjoyed the
autonomy that a pay check brought and wanted it back. Before the economic slump in the 1970's
women only brought in 10% of the household income, if they worked, now they were bringing in
40-45%.
With women needed in the work force to keep the mortgage paid, the Scanzoni model
of the ideal marriage went down the tubes. I only know about 5 families that the woman stays
home and takes care of the family. Most families are two pay check families.
Question 2-- The statement, “All Americans, regardless of sex, age, social status
race/ethnicity, religion, place of residence, or previous marital status have similar desires to
marry and equal opportunities to marry,” is a load of crud. Looking at Kiser’s continuums for the
“pool of eligibles” and Bernard’s “marital gradient” can be beneficial to understanding why that
statement is false.
Looking at Bernard’s “marital gradient” we can see that not everyone can have equal
opportunities to marry. The “marital gradient” looks like this. Picture two continuums that are
running vertically with a high end on top and the low end on the bottom. Now if these two
continuums are placed side by side so that they are parallel the diagram is complete. Now to
explain how this works. The two continuums are social statuses, one for men and the other for
women. Men often marry down the social ladder, which means if there was a line drawn between
the two continuums that show how men often marry there would be lines running from the high
end of the male side to the middle to low end of the women’s side. This is because men often
want the control and power over their wives. If she is lower on the continuum than him, he has a
better chance of keeping the strong hold. Women follow those same lines only in reverse.
Women marry men that are higher up than them. This happens because women’s status in life
becomes that of her husbands so if she is to better her quality she needs to marry higher up. The
interesting thing to point out is that there are two groups that are left out of the eligible marring
areas on the gradient. One is women that have a high social status and the other is the men on
the low end of the social status ladder. These two groups are left out because the women have a
hard time finding men that are “higher” than herself so she can improve her quality of life, and
the men have a hard time finding women that are “lower” than themselves that they can control.
Also, women that are more powerful and often are seen as too powerful often put off men. These
men are finding themselves unable to offer anything to a woman. The scary part is that both of
those groups that are not in the eligible statuses are growing in size. More women are entering
college and going to medical school etc. Both of those actions increase a woman’s status. I am
unsure why the man group is growing other than maybe because women are doing so much more
there is not as much opportunity to advance. Looking at the “marital gradient” that Bernard
created shows how that statement is wrong. I am sure there are a number of women that are in
that high end of the women’s social status continuum that are single and do not want to be. They
do not have the opportunity to marry some one. The same is true for the men in that lower region
of the men’s social continuum. Many of them are single, not because they want too but because
they have nothing to offer a woman so that she would want to marry him. Also, not everyone has
the same desires to marry. I am sure there are a number of men and women that have many
people that fit on the “marital gradient” to them that are still single.
There is a new woman that is emerging into our society. My mother, other than the fact
that she is married, fits this new woman. These women have been married, their children are
grown and she does not want to get married again. She does not need a man in her life to
increase her social status. She has done it all by herself. My mother is a college professor
finishing her doctorate in education. She writes the test questions for the nursing board that must
be passed to get your nursing license. She has a lot of power and clout in the medical
community. My mother loves her life and does not need my father. It is difficult to say that but
it seems to be very true. I am unsure why my parents are still married. They must stay together
because neither of them pushes their way into the other’s life and they are pretty used to having
the other one in the world around them. My mother probably fits into that upper woman category
and if she was single she has told me she never wants to get married again. So the statement that
all Americans have the same desires to marry and have equal opportunities to marry has been
debunked and I have not even talked about Kiser’s continuums.
Kiser’s continuums for the “pools of eligibles” are also helpful in understanding why that
statement cannot possible be true. First of all there are a number of continuums that everyone
can be placed on. Also keep in mind that people can move along these continuums. The first
continuum is entitled “Expectation to Marry.” One side of the continuum is weak and the other
is strong. Depending on where a person is on that continuum depends on if there is a strong
expectation to marry. There are many continuums with the “pool of eligibles.” One of them has
to do with that desire to marry statement. Many people do not fit on the high end of that
continuum. Also, some people do not have a desire to marry as much as they have the desire to
marry the “right person.” To some people it is very important to marry the right person. To
other people the “right person” could be one of many and there is a wide range of opportunity to
marry the right person. If you believe that there is only one “right” person for you to marry with,
you might see the opportunity to marry the “right” person to be almost impossible. It is very
difficult to meet all the available people in the “pool of eligibles.” After all, there is somewhere
around seven billion people in this world. I don’t think a person has the time to find, meet and
discard all the opportunities to find the “right” person.
The statement, “American women, especially upper and upper-middle class women, with
strong career aspirations, must strategically plan their lives, especially regarding marriage and
parenthood, much more carefully than men of comparable status, class or career orientation,” is
very true. I have seen how this is true in my own life and also I can demonstrate the truth of this
using the marital gradient and the continuums. First of all, in my own life I have noticed this
being fact. I am twenty years old and have been married once before. My family is of the upper
class social status area of this world. I have met a number of men that were put off by the fact
that the money they had to offer did not matter. I wanted the sensitivity that many of these men
did not know how to show. Also, there are some men I have met that do not like the fact that I
want to have a job and there was a time in my life when I did not want to have to stop working to
have children. Trying to find someone that will not mind those things that I want will be harder
to find as I get older. My “pool of eligibles” gets smaller as I get older due to the fact that
because of the societal standard of the proper ages to marry my “pool of eligibles” is the largest it
is going to be. Also, the men my age do not want to get married and settle down. There are not
any pressures to do so at least they are not as strong as they used to be. They can wait until they
are 40 years old if they want to. I cannot wait until I am 40 years old if I want to have children.
It is not safe or healthy to have children that late in life as a woman. For biological reasons I
need to find the person to marry, settle down and birth my babies when I am a young adult. Also,
it is difficult to find a number of employers that will hire you, as a woman, if they are afraid that
you will quit as soon as you get pregnant. The best thing to do is get married young and have
your family soon, then when you enter the work place employers do not feel like they will loose
their investment in a few years. To an employer the fact that you have already had your family
makes you a better asset. You are less likely to pack up and move at just any better offer because
of the hassles of moving a family and because you already have had your family you should be
available in the future.
Another reason it is more difficult for a woman to find a man to marry as she gets older
has to do with what a woman brings to the bargaining table. As a woman gets older her number
one chip deteriorates, her looks. Gravity finally sets in and you sag and develop wrinkles, age
spots and other signs show up. Regardless of what you were told, the fountain of youth does not
come in Oil of Olay bottle and plastic surgery can only do so much! Also, as women get older
and get used to taking care of themselves it becomes harder and harder to think about giving up
that autonomy that many men will expect you to give up when you marry them. Remember with
the marital gradient men want to marry down for the power hold.
Men do not need to worry about planning when to marry and when to have children. First
of all, they don’t have to actually take the time off from work when it is time to give birth and
stay home with the child while it is nursing. They don’t have to worry about being too old to
have children. A disgusting medical fact is that men can still procreate up to 24 hours after
death. I do not want to know how science figured out that but it proves the point that men do not
have a biological clock. Second of all their “pool of eligibles” gets larger as they get older. It is
more acceptable to marry someone significantly older than you are if you are an older gentleman.
Also, by waiting till they are older they have more to offer women with in the reasons of status,
wealth and other things that men acquire with time. Which makes more women available to
them. Or at least more women willing to give him a second glance. As shallow as it seems men
really want the youth, beauty and power hold they can obtain with a woman that is young. So a
young woman has a much better chance of finding a mate. The older they become the less
chance of settling down the way they wanted to. Women have to plan their lives carefully. Men
on the other hand don’t have to plan carefully because time is their friend when it comes to
marriage and parenthood. They have more to offer later in their lives to those that will need him.
Question 4-- I do agree that there is a “considerable amount of ...antagonism,
misunderstanding, inability to effectively and honestly communicate.” There also is “varying
levels of animosity, dishonesty, game-playing and distrust.” First let’s look at the amount of
misunderstanding and other things that affect the communication process. Willard Waller was
very accurate in his understanding of the human species dynamics when it came to behavior with
the opposite sex. His studies were done in the 1920's and the 1930's but I still see it being true in
the 1990's. As a female I was told that men are after only one thing from a woman, her sexuality.
You could never trust a man. He would say anything to “get into your pants.” If a man said you
were pretty, you could not believe him because he was just buttering up to you in hopes that you
would return the favors. This was demonstrated to me in many ways. My mother would tell me
to watch out for men, to be careful because they could get you pregnant and many men do not
want the responsibility of children and so he will leave you high and dry. Even in school did you
learn how to react to the opposite sex. School counselors said things like, “Never move too fast,
regardless of how you felt towards him, because once you did he would loose interest in you.”
You learn from experience that men do not want someone that had been around the block, but
they also do not want a prude. Women learn really early that you have never had sex with more
than two men. It was a very intricate cat and mouse game. How to bat your eyes, don’t eat to
much because you don’t want him to think you are a pig, always look your best etc. I mean
looking back and even now I really do think I am schizophrenic. After all, if you were in the
company of a man you had to second-guess everything he did. You had to manipulate your
behaviors to coincide with what he needed, without giving too much. It was crazy. You learned
to game-play. You had to learn how much to give away but not too much or he would be gone.
The same was when you went to church. The church leaders told you how to act; what to talk
about; even what was appropriate to wear. You could not wear certain things because you would
be enticing the beast in a man and he might not be able to control it. The funny thing about that
was many women, at lest I was told that these are the men you would want to marry, those who
believed like you and here they too only wanted sex! It brings back such memories about the fact
that men were suppose to be dominate over women because they had to be controlled because the
first woman lead to the demise of the sinless world. If women were such evil creatures why was
it left up to us in church to learn to control the “beast” in the man? If men are suppose to control
women because we are so evil then why leave it up to us not to entice the “beast?” Shouldn’t the
men be taught that women were not to be looked upon as purely sexual beings?
It was placed on me that men could not control themselves when it came to sex and it is
hard to believe and trust a man when he says “I will never cheat on you,” and the next day you
see him drooling over a picture of a naked woman. I have heard from a number of men, “What is
the problem? It is just a picture?” I have one thing to say. How long does it take a dieter to
cheat when they tell themselves it is okay to look? Sooner or later the dieters that look
eventually start telling themselves that I can have a small taste, just a tiny piece and before they
know what is happening they are eating the entire cake. The same thing happens with an
alcoholic. If when you come in contact with women you cannot control the “beast” how can you
possible think a woman will believe you it the situation of just looking?
I was told that men could not be trusted, especially when it came to sex and women. It is
has been difficult to break out of that idea when the men in your life continue to do things that
make you believe what your mom, school counselors and church leaders told you must be true. I
mean, as a man, you cannot tear yourself away from staring at the cleavage of another woman,
how is any woman going to believe you when you say “You are the only one for me!”
The simply socialization of women believing that men are only after sex has lead to the lack of
effective communication. It is really difficult to be open and honest with someone that you feel
like you have to walk on pins and needles around for fear that he will take advantage of you or
reject you because you were too fast.
The socialization of men to women has also fed into this communication problem.
According to Waller men are taught that women are different, manipulative and inferior. We are
different. No argument there. I can understand men thinking we are manipulative, especially if
you look at how women are taught to regard all of a man’s advances. It takes a bit of
manipulation to make sure he really loves you and not just your body. It takes a miracle worker
to manipulate out of a man his deep feelings that a woman feels she needs to know before giving
him her gift. The socialization of women being inferior I think has a lot to do with what Jack
Litewka talks about in his article “The Socialized Penis.”
I believe most of what Litewka has to say. In the article he makes note of an order of
stages that a man goes through in sexual stimulus and response that he refers to as
“Objectification, Fixation and Conquest.” During the Objectification period women are seen as
different, not sure exactly why but there are some difference that are noticeable like long hair,
thinner waists, breasts and “hips that swell.” The media according to him causes the Fixation
stage, and I do have to agree with that. During the Fixation stage men are taught to fixate on
certain parts of a woman’s anatomy, the ones objectified in the first stage, and many men have
found that they have a reaction. Biologically most men learn that during the fixation process
erection happens and erection is what has always set the men from the boys. Some people will
disagree but ask a man that has had a problem with impotence and most will agree that the ability
to achieve an erection is essential to being a man. Sometimes they get erections without the
stimulus being right in front of them and that is when men often attribute that their penis has a
mind of its own. It can be a less embarrassing when a man gets an erection when he was not
wanting to and can shrug it off with, “One-eyed Willie was just saying Hi.” The last stage is the
Conquest stage. Up until now I have to agree that men learn to objectify and fixate and that
many of them learn this from the media but I have a problem with the Conquest stage.
The conquest stage is where a man “succeeds in reducing a female from a being into a
thing and achieves some form of sexual gratification,”(Litewka). I have talked with a few men
about this and let’s just put it this way I find myself angered. Why? As a woman I would like it
if men could look at me and see me. Not my breasts, not my “hips that swell,” but to see the
whole part. Women don’t do this. Men are not reduced to “broad shoulders” and “muscular
legs.” Most of the men I asked say that the reason this happens, the break down of a woman
from a person to being a “cute butt,” is because it is easier to be rejected by a “cute butt” than
another person. I read about that happening in the article “Why Are Men So Preoccupied With
Sex and Success.” It must be because I don’t have a penis, that I just cannot understand why
turning a woman into parts makes it easier to deal with the rejection. It is still rejection!
I find all this dishonesty, distrust and game-playing dysfunctional in relationships. Since
I have found myself a party in the above actions, I think I can shed some light on why this is
dysfunctional. So many times I have heard from my friends that are married, “He just isn’t like
he used to be when we were dating.” I even said it! Well when you are trying to compete for a
man/woman there are certain things you might not be to open about until later in the relationship.
Self-disclosure is not always something to do really quickly. After all, if you have been dating
for only 2 weeks this might be too early to start a debate on abortion. The reason I think this
becomes so dysfunctional is many people never get around to discussing touchy topics until it is
too late. After you get pregnant, is not the time to start discussing the abortion issue. The reason
you don’t know your spouse after getting married is you can now shed the “don’t do that and
don’t do this” persona that we are told you have to do in order to get a mate and now become
yourself.
There has to come a time in every relationship when you become yourself. I have taken
to the idea, in this last year of my life, that I will be me from the beginning. If I eat too much to
satisfy what you want in a wife I don’t want to be married to you for the next 60 years. I would
starve! It takes too much energy trying to play a different role depending on whom you are
around. I would suggest that this change of attitude should be required in America and it will
take care of the problem of miscommunication and the dishonesty about what you enjoy and
what you want. This attitude does lead to a lot of rejection. Many people could not handle it.
Another suggestion that my mother kind of liked, was we will just rid the world of all the men,
since it is their fault that women play-games and act schizophrenic, after all that is what they
want. A whore in the bedroom and a lady in the living room. Anyway, rid the world of men and
save a few in captivity for procreation purposes. My mother liked the idea I think based off of
the reason that her female friends are much more understanding. She can be herself with them
and doesn’t feel like she has to put up some false front so she will still be seen as a “real
woman.” My mother also has had her children and does not feel like she “needs” my father. A
lesbian in my dorm liked my mother’s idea, figures. A gay man in my dorm offered this solution.
If the whole world became homosexual then the problem would be solved because men know
what a man needs and what to say, act and react. The reverse being true for women to other
women. I am unsure what he was going to do about procreation. Since I like the company of
men and some of them are not that bad, I am not opting for any of the above suggestions. I am
not sure there can be a solution to the issue at hand. Too many years have gone into the
solidification of these actions.