This type of marriage was made possible when America moved out of an agrarian society and into an industrialized one as it did around 1840 (Bernard 9). As married couples sought out a life independent of kinship by moving to centers of community where employment allowed them to make a better life for themselves the good provider emerged as a predominately male role. The opportunity for this t

By the mid 1970s, there were more two-earner families than single. So very quickly after its peak, the ideal family was no more. Was this change a functional or dysfunctional transition? In my opinion it was a functional change. In reality, things began to return to a natural state during the 1960s. The conditions of the fifties were made possible by a rare set of economic conditions that only lasted a few years but all other aspects of the ideal family of the fifties was artificially created by a society that feared a return of the Depression or even worse Nuclear War with the Soviet Union. To allay these fears, society sought something reassuring and chose the idea of mom, dad, and the kids. They put their dreams, their efforts, and their hopes into that idea but found out very quickly that it was only a dream that could not last and would probably never return.

We have looked at what the model marriage was and when it began. We have looked at the participants, their roles, the assumptions about those roles, and the implications of those assumptions. We even have an idea of some of the requirements for this type of marriage to emerge. Why though did this type of marriage expand dramatically during the period after the Second World War and what was the cause of its demise a short thirty years later? To answer this question, let us look more closely at what had to come together for this type of marriage to proliferate.

"The labor-capital accord emerged in the unionized core of the economy, particularly in manufacturing industries, in the immediate post-war period. It coordinated the interests of workers and employers by restructuring their relationships around a new social contract. Hard work by reliable employees was rewarded with high wages and long-term, stable employment. Under these conditions, business profits grew enormously, and the American working class became the richest in the world. Moreover, access to this lifestyle often required only a high school education."

For women, the implications were just as varied and perhaps much more profound. Many of the pampered wives in affluent households came to be economic parasites (Bernard 15). These women felt they had no worth, that they were being taken advantage of and many developed the desire to rebel (Epstein/Easton 97). There was also the feeling for some that they were failing in child rearing. They were being told that the "most primary and inviolable of human ties was the one between mother and child" (Gilder 81). When conflict arose with their children some developed feelings of guilt. Some women also tried to live up to the idea that they were more moral than men. One of the ways they tried to assure their own morality was through a surgical procedure called clitoridectomy (Demos 71). The majority of women of course did not result to this procedure but the fact that many did is an astounding implication on how assumptions can affect lives. Women also lost much of the status that they had previously held in the agrarian society. They were no longer essential to the family economy that they had been (Epstein/Easton 89). This was a major loss for women. Finally, there is the assumption that the model marriage of the past was the very cornerstone of society and it is the end of this model marriage that is leading to record high rates of divorce, abortion, pornography, and sexual harassment (Kass 106). The implication of this is far-reaching, as many people believe the myth that everyone was much better off during the past.

Epstein/Easton, Barbara. "Industrialization and Femininity: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century

Television was only one of the societal influences though. School

Some common words found in the essay are:
Perspectives Family, Social Contract, Nineteenth-Century England, John Scanzoni, Western Europe, Dream Rubin, Europe Japan, Soviet Union, Moore Girl, Home Economics, type marriage, model marriage, economic conditions, ideal family, nijole benokraitis upper, families ed, benokraitis upper, women home, nijole benokraitis, saddle river, conditions met, ed nijole benokraitis, upper saddle river, benokraitis upper saddle, families ed nijole,
Approximate Word count = 2503
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)