Modern Manners + Etiquette: Sharing Household Chores
Monday, May 30, 2011
What's going on with the venerable state of marriage? Last Thursday the Census Bureau released the latest statistics about marriage that say, in the past sixty years the number of “husband-wife families” has fallen 30% since 1950, when 78% of the adult population was married. Currently only 48% of adults are wed. Telltale signs over the past decade are no less than the deluge of self-help books and TV shows, many of which out housework as a major—often silent—issue. Helicopter parents want to know the etiquette for instilling their progeny with the skills for sustaining authentic relationships. Ever marrieds want to know how to make stubborn hubby pitch in with the chores and take out the garbage?
Do couples who share the housework have more sex? Apparently so. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal those couples fall into two categories: the go-getters, competitive, work-obsessed, Type A personality couples, and those couples who take pride in saying that housework “makes the couple remember why they are married, to be on the same team.”
What makes a marriage work?
Faithfulness, a happy sexual relationship, and sharing household chores—in that order. According to a new Pew
Research Center survey of American adults, “sharing household chores” ranks third in importance on a list of nine issues credited with fostering successful marriages. Sharing household chores is followed by such concerns as adequate income, good housing, common interests, and shared religious beliefs—it even proceeds children, which is followed by shared political views.
Not surprisingly, 93% of marrieds rated “faithfulness” as “very important,” and only 7% said it was “not important,” according to the Pew survey Modern Marriage – New Social & Demographic Trends.
In an era when women work so hard to be taken seriously, a modest 62% of those married couples surveyed said sharing household chores is “very important to marital success.” Unexpectedly, there was virtually no difference of opinion between men and women; or between older adults and younger adults. Three in ten marrieds surveyed said, sharing chores is “rather important,” to a successful marriage. Just 7% said it is “not very important.” While the Pew survey didn't include other studies to clarify this trend, however, it did announces that there's a lot more sharing of household chores now than there used to be.
Apparently back in 1990, fewer than half, only 47% of adults, said sharing chores was “very important for the success of the marriage.” Since then no other issue on the list has risen in importance as much. African Americans and Hispanics were somewhat more inclined to say shared household chores are very important to a successful marriage. Additionally, married working mothers are more apt to feel this way than are married mothers who don't work outside the home.
Progress on the home front
The good news, according to a comprehensive study of family time diaries by researchers at the University of Maryland, is that in 2003 the average father performed approximately 9.6 hours a week of household chores, more than twice as many as fathers spent in 1965; fathers also spent more time giving childcare, up to seven hours a week (more than double from 1965). Subsequently, there has been a gradual but steady improvement in parents sharing household as well as childcare responsibilities. Mothers, the study found, spent 18.1 hours on average per week on household chores in 2003, down from 31.9 in 1965, and 14.1 hours a week taking care of their children, up from 10.2 hours a week in 1965. We can assume the children benefit from more quality parent time.
In brief, we still have a gender gap in the tedium of diapers-and-dishes-and-meal planning-and-bill paying front lines, but obviously there is more sharing of chores going on than there used to be. To quote a leading authority on family studies, Professor William Doherty of the University of Minnesota, “It is not the case that men are slugs.” As men progress, it only makes sense that the resentment modern women harbor will become less bitter.
Couples sharing housework are less likely to divorce
Whatever the reasons, the numbers are clear. “Couples who share chores are less likely to divorce,” concludes a study from the London School of Economics tracking 3,500 British couples from the birth of their first child. Previous to this 2009 study, the escalating divorce rate since the early sixties was blamed on the steady increase of women working and going back to work following the birth of children, thus laying the bad rap that marriages where the man was the sole bread winner and the woman stayed at home were less likely to end in divorce.
The importance of sharing household chores for a successful marriage
When you're always trying to please someone, your life with them is one long list of chores. Even though more and more couples share financial responsibilities, women still perform more than their share of the daily grind. In their own time, couples seem to be learning the joys of domesticating their relationship. “More housework equals more sex,” declares a recent survey reporting that 72% of couples said sharing chores made their relationship happier, up from 47% in 1990. However, what researchers can't seem to pin down is the reason for more couples sharing housework. Is it because we have become a country of go-getters? Do we feel a clean house is more conducive to intimacy? What is it about housework that ignites a spark to have sex?
Rhode Island psychiatrist and marital expert Scott Haltzman, whose most recent book, Secrets of Happy Families, cites a survey that men believe they make compromises 80% of the time, while women believe that happens only 50% of the time. During my recent interview with Dr. Haltzman about the latest Census Bureau release and his new book, he said, “Men are saying, I recognize the importance of making the household a priority to you and by pitching in I'm telling you your needs are important to me. I'm making your needs a priority.”
“What a wonderful world it would be if everyone did everything equally,” said Haltzman. “To do everything equally would be a leap of faith.”
Another interesting poll found that more than 75% of those surveyed said they shared financial responsibilities with their partner, and half to two thirds of the 400 marrieds said cooking, cleaning and paying the bills are still primarily the woman's responsibility. Despite the facts, men were more likely than women to say that responsibilities were equally divided.
“Men and women see these things very differently, and assess their roles differently in ways that cause problems,” said Keith Nicholis, Director of the University of South Alabama Polling Group, which conducted this survey. “She thinks she does it all; he thinks he does an equal share.”
Men who do housework have better sex lives
Does the act of doing housework amp up your sex life? One husband said, “If you're both around doing housework, that also means you are alone together, and in a place where you both are relaxed and comfortable. It's pretty hard to have sex when you're not together in a place that permits it.”
Yes, the jury is in, men who do more housework and actively participate in child rearing have happier marriages and therefore better sex lives says marital expert Dr. John Gottman in his book, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. He cites the research of psychologists Claire Rabin and Pepper Schwarz that found when husbands and wives make what they both feel is a concerted effort to share the household chores equally, both benefit. They warn that inequities have profound consequences for the marital happiness of the wife that in turn affects the quality of the husband's sex life as well.
The shared opinion here is that, a woman feels more respect and love from her husband when she shares the same beliefs about household chores and child caregiving. Many men, they find, are blind to the connection between how little housekeeping chores he does and how she feels about him. If a woman resents being the servant in the marriage, it can't help not affect the intimacy and sex. Nobody thinks cleaning the toilet is an aphrodisiac.
One study found that men who say they support “feminist ideas” in reality only do so for four minutes a day more than men who admit to being blatantly macho. At heart, when a husband doesn't help out around the house he's saying he doesn't respect her. Why would a woman want to have sex with a man who doesn't respect her?
One long-suffering wife, who does all the household chores finds that even now after her husband 's retired, she cannot get him to do anything as simple as putting out the garbage, or, for that matter, pitching in to help with any of the household chores. Throughout her recovery from health issues, his main concern was “what about me?”
The good news is that many parents are instilling in young children the importance of doing their share by being good role models themselves and dividing the drudge work with the goal that everyone in the family will be happier, if mom is happy.
Didi Lorillard writes about all matters of etiquette and manners, not because she thinks she knows it all, but because she is struggling to learn from her many missteps. Ask Didi questions at NewportManners.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, after you've seen her previous GoLocalProv columns listed below.
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