The Role of Women in the Family

The role of women in the family has shifted significantly. Women were described as housekeepers and mothers by Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (212) in 1879. The role of homemaker and mother now incorporates being primary wage earner and single head of the household for many women, according to June Andrews Horowitz (62). Over the past hundred years, despite this changing view of the role of women in the family, and not discounting men's contributions to childcare and household chores, women still maintain the primary responsibility for care of the children and household (Hochschild 7). This primary responsibility for the home and child has been maintained regardless of whether the working woman is married or single.

The increasing number of female single parent families have had a dramatic impact on the view of the traditional family in society.

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mportant than childrearing for women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Housekeeping was certainly the most time consuming activity. Further, the importance of the relationship between mother and child was many levels down in the hierarchy of family relationships and female responsibilities in American society at that time (55-56). The status of women and children in the family would change profoundly beginning in the 1750s. Over this two hundred year period, the functions of the family would be totally redefined. A higher value would be placed on the emotional bonds between mother and child. Power would be redistributed among the members of the family. Finally, in the legal sense, the power of fathers would be restricted, the power of mothers enlarged and the power of both parents would be made subordinate to the welfare of the children (56). According to Stephanie Coontz, society would be better served to work with the many different kinds of families that really exist in our country. That means millions of working mothers, out-of-wedlock births, marriages that do not last, and children reared by single mothers who are often living with men who are not their biological fathers. While Coontz indicates that
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Approximate Word count = 1790
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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