Sex Roles, Vol. ll, Nos.

5/6, 1984

A Comparison of the Marriage-Role Expectations of College Women Enrolled in a Functional Marriage Course in 1961, 1972, and 19781
M. O'Neal Weeks and Bruce A. Gage
Department of Family Studies, University of Kentucky

The Dunn Marriage Role Expectation Inventory was used to compare the marriage-role expectations of female university students enrolled in an introductory marriage and family course in 1961 (N = 72), 1972 (N = 58), and 1978 (N = 115). The 1978 group was significantly more egalitarian than the 1961 group in overall marriage-role expectations and on each o f the seven subcategories o f authority, homemaMng, child care, personal characteristics, social participation, education, and employment and support. The 1972 group was also found to be significantly more egalitarian than the 1961 group in overall marriage-role expectations and on all subcategories except authority. The 1978 group was significantly more egalitarian than the 1972 group only on authority and homemaking, with no significant differences on overall marriage-role expectations or on the other five subscales. The significant m o v e toward more egalitarian attitudes toward authority and homemaking is accentuated by the fact that only 6 years separate the 1972 and 1978 groups, "whilethere is an 11-year difference between the 1961 and 1972 groups.

Since the 1930s researchers have been giving increasing attention to the roles of men and women both inside and outside the family. There seems to be little doubt that there has been a significant change in extrafamilial roles,

~The data were collected in February 1961, January 1972, and September 1978. Special acknowledgment and appreciation are expressed to Jessie Ringo (retired) for making the 1961 data available for this study and to William F. Kenkel, Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, for his helpful comments.
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especially for women. Changes in familial roles seem to be less clearly documented by previous research. For example, a study by Kirkpatrick (1936) was replicated by Roper and Labeff (1977), and both the original study and the replication reported that male and female college students and their parents were consistently more egalitarian in economic and politicallegal areas than in the domestic area. After analyzing data from the 1970 National Fertility Study, Mason and Bumpass (1975) concluded that a consistent sex-role ideology had not emerged for most women. They found that attitudes oriented to the marketplace tended to be increasingly egalitarian, while attitudes related to domestic roles demonstrated a resistance to change. This pattern was also reported by Hesselbart (1976). These studies support Bernard's (1972) argument that even though there has been a trend toward more egalitarian legal rights for men and women, there has not been a clear, consistent trend toward more egalitarian roles in marriage. Smith and Self (1980) found that women who identify with the feminist movement have formed a generally consistent sex-role ideology, while traditional women tend to be more inconsistent in ideology. Attempts to determine from the literature whether there has been a significant trend toward more egalitarian marital roles is confounded in part by the contradictory results reported. Some studies have reported that women "preferred" or "expected" egalitarian role relationship in marriage (Lopata, 1971; Railings, Anderson, & Weeks, 1974; Segrest & Weeks, 1976), while others have failed to find support for egalitarian expectations and/or behavior in marriage (Dunn, 1960; Davis & Oleson, 1965; Dyer & Urban, 1969; Adamek, 1970; Almquist & Angrist, 1970; Paloma & Garland, 1971; Osmond & Martin, 1975; Stafford, Backman, & DiBona, 1977). Attempting to document or refute a trend toward egalitarian expectations in marriage is further confounded by the fact that the above studies are not comparative across time and they use data from different populations, samples, and measures. When we turn to studies that make cross-generational comparisons, the answer to the question of whether there has been a significant trend toward more egalitarian role expectations is no less equivocal. Wise and Carter (1965) found no significant differences in the attitudes of mothers and daughters in a "tradition-oriented Mormon community" (p. 531) toward either the wives' homemaker role or the wives sharing the husband's provider role. The traditional attitudes persisted for mothers and daughters, even though 41.4% of the mothers and 35.670 of the daughters were working away from home at the time. In another study, the reported expectations of a group of high school students showed the same pattern as a married group for both males and females (Geiken, 1964). The area most frequently shared by married couples (and most expected to be shared by students) was "authority," with household tasks being the least shared and

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child care tasks falling in between for both groups. Roper and Labeff (1977), on the other hand, reported data which showed college females to be significantly more egalitarian than both their fathers and mothers and college males to be significantly more egalitarian than their fathers, but less (though not significantly so) egalitarian than their mothers. A final approach to investigating whether there has been a change in marital role expectations has been to utilize nongenerational crosssectional data which compare the attitudes of similar groups at different periods. Parelius (1975), in comparing college students in 1969 and in 1973 regarding their adult sex-role attitudes and perceptions, found a shift toward feminism in the women students' attitudes toward work, financial responsibility, and division of labor in the home. Epstein and Bronzaft (1972) compared a group of women entering college in 1970 with a similar group entering college in 1965. The authors reported a decrease in percentage (35% in 1965 to 28% in 1970) of women who indicated that in 15 years they would like to be housewives. The Epstein and Bronzaft data also showed an increase in the percentage of women who preferred the category, " a married career woman with children" (42% in 1965 to 48% in 1970). Epstein and Bronzaft concluded that the 1970 sample "shows an even stronger rejection than the 1965 national sample of the traditional view of home and family as the be-all and end-all for women while, at the same time, rejecting any suggestion of eschewing marriage or giving up having a family" (p. 671). However, it should be noted that Epstein & Bronzaft made no statistical comparison of the two groups to determine whether the changes in attitudes between 1965 and 1970 were significant. Roper and Labeff (1977), comparing their data with Kirkpatrick's (1936), reported that students and parents in 1974 had higher mean feminism scores than students and parents in 1934. However, Roper and Labeff were not able to make statistical comparisons of the group means to determine if the difference were significant.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The literature reviewed above and the larger body from which it was selected made an important contribution to the understanding of role attitudes and behaviors in marriage and other areas. However, the empirical answer to whether there has been a significant shift toward egalitarianism is unclear. Since change is a process that occurs across time, one of the more useful approaches to studying the question of whether changes have occurred in the role expectations women have for marriage is to compare the expectations or attitudes of similar groups of women across significant time spans. The studies cited above which used this approach reflect one of

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the two weaknesses. Either the time span covered was very short (four years in Parelius, 1975, study and five years in Epstein and Bronzaft, 1972), or the data from the two time periods could not be treated statistically (Roper & Labeff, 1977). The present study employs a statistical comparison of data from three similar groups over a 17.5-year span using an identical instrument for all three groups. The marriage-role expectations of three comparable groups of female college students enrolled in the same functional marriage course in 1961, 1972, and 1978 were compared.

METHOD

Subjects
The subjects were female college students enrolled in a functional marriage course in the Department of Family Studies at the University of Kentucky in Spring 1961, (N = 72), Fall 1972 (N = 58), and Fall 1978 (N = 115). No data on the subjects' socioeconomic status were available. However, since all three groups of students were enrolled in the same course offered at the same state land grant university, similarity of socioeconomic status of the three groups is assumed. The results of a comparison of the three groups on the variables of age, educational level, and marital status is reported in Table I. The three groups were similar on the variables of age and marital status, but significantly different in their educational levels. The subjects in the two earlier groups were predominantly freshmen; the latest group was comprised of more sophomores than freshmen, with a higher proportion of juniors and seniors than the earlier groups. However, when the Marriage Role Expectation Inventory (MREI) scores of the 1972 and 1978 groups were compared by student classification level, no significant differences were found (see Table II). Therefore the difference in the educational levels of the groups appears not to be a significant factor in comparing the three groups for change in marriage role expectations. 2
ZAs Angrist and Almquist (1975) point out, how much college students change during their four years of college has long been a major dispute. In their own research on career roles, these authors found support for both sides of this dispute. For example, regarding typicality of career choice, Almquist and Angrist (1970) reported that significant differences did not occur from freshmen to seniors, but in 1975 Angrist and Alrnquist found some students changed significantly while others did not. They reported that "numerically, most substantial of all (in their sample) are the Careerists and Non-Careerists, whose life-style aspirations change only within a limited range all four years; together, they comprise half the class. For these students, relatively little change is characteristic. They begin college and end it with approximately similar notions about their adult roles (Angrist & Almquist, 1975, p. 78). One could argue that since college is preparatory for career roles more than for marital roles, the latter are probably even less consistently impacted by college than the former. In any case, the present study found no significant difference in the MREI scores of the 1972 and 1978 groups by college classification.

Marriage-Role Expectations Table I. Characteristics of Subjects

Characteristic Mean age (years) Educational level a Freshmen Sophomores Juniors Seniors Marital status Single Married Divorced 1961 (N = 72) 18.4 75.0% 9.7% 5.6% 9.7% 69 2 1 1972 (N = 58) 20.4 29.3 % 32.8% 20.7% 17.2% 58 0 0 1978 ( N - 115) 19.6 19.1% 44.4% 24.5% I2.2% 102 7 1

381

"Based on four years of college. Chi-square statistic based on actual number in each level; x 2 = 65.3, p < .001.

Procedure

In the Spring of 1961, the Fall of 1972, and the Fall of 1978, the Marriage Role Expectation Inventory--Form F (Dunn, 1960) was administered to students enrolled in an introductory marriage and family course. The MREI was administered to all three groups early in the semester before the subject of roles was discussed in class. The MREI is comprised of 71 statements about marriage-role expectations to which the respondent is asked to express her degree of agreement or disagreement with the statement by circling one of five responses ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." The inventory yields a total role expectation score for each subject, plus subscores in seven areas: authority, homemaking, child care, personal characteristics, social participation, education, and employment

Table I1. Comparison of MREI Scores of Students

by College Classification Level College level 1978 (N = 115) Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior 1978 (N = 58) Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior 2-MREI score 61.4 62.6 59,9 62.7 .57 a 55.7 58.7 57.5 56.7 F .24"

"ns, p > .05.

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and support. Using the Split-half method, Dunn (1960) reported a reliability coefficient of .95, which was corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula to .975. Although Dunn's MREI is somewhat dated and other more recent scales are now available, use of another scale would not have allowed for statistical comparison between the groups, since the Dunn scale was used with the 1961 group. This is one of the limitations with which one has to work when making statistical comparisons between data collected at different points in time.

Data Analysis
The test for significance of difference between two proportions (Bruning & Kintz, 1968) was used to analyze the data. The reason this statistic was used, as opposed to an analysis of variance, is that the individual scores on the MREI were not available for the 1961 group. Instead, the data had been recorded and preserved by counting the number of Ss who gave egalitarian responses to each item. The proportion of egalitarian responses to each of the 71 statements was calculated for each group. Then the accumulative proportions of egalitarian responses were calculated for the total number of statements and for the statements in each of the seven subareas. Given the form in which the data from 1961 was recorded, this was the only statistical process applicable. The appropriateness of this analysis is supported by the fact that in scoring the MREI, Dunn treats "strongly agree" and "agree" responses to egalitarian statements and "strongly disagree and "disagree" responses to traditional statements as "correct" responses, and all others as "incorrect" responses.

RESULTS Changes in the marriage-role expectations of the three groups are presented in graphs to show the patterns of the changes by subscales and by years. Figure 1 plots the proportion of egalitarian responses by subscales. There was an increase in egalitarian responses over time in six of the seven subscales and in the total scores, with social participation showing a notable increase between 1961 and 1972 with a slight decrease from 1972 to 1978. Overall, there was a striking similarity in the profiles of the subscales when compared by years. Figure 2 shows the proportion of egalitarian responses by years. Similar patterns are shown. The authority, homemaking, child care, education, and employment and support subscales were consistent in the

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direction of change from 1961 to 1972 to 1978. However, for authority and homemaking, the rate of change increased between 1972 and 1978; the other three subscales' rate of change toward greater egalitarianism decreased between 1972 and 1978. Of all the subscales, the personal characteristics and social participation subscales showed the greatest rate of change between 1961 and 1972, and then showed almost no increase (personal characteristics) or a slight decline (social participation) from 1972 to 1978. Statistical analysis of the data indicated that the total proportion of egalitarian responses of both the 1972 group (80.60/o) and the 1978 group (87.0070) was significantly higher than the 1961 group (50.1%), but the

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difference between the 1972 and 1978 groups was not significant (see Table III). When the proportion of egalitarian responses to each of the subscales was compared for the three groups, the 1978 group was significantly more egalitarian than the 1961 group on all seven subscales but was significantly more egalitarian than the 1972 group on only two, subscales--authority and homemaking. The 1972 group was significantly more egalitarian than the 1961 group on all the subscales except authority. The areas showing the greatest increase in egalitarian responses were personal characteristics and social participation, where the change was from a minority of egalitarian responses in 1961 to a strong majority of egalitarian responses in 1972 and 1978. The other five areas showed a less

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marked increase, with authority producing the least change. In all five areas the change was from a majority to a larger majority of egalitarian responses. The data also show that there was an increase in the homogeneity of responses across all areas from 1961 to 1972 to 1978. The proportion of egalitarian responses in 1961 ranged from 30.7070 (social participation) to 66.8O7o (authority), a difference of 36.1/0. In 1972, the range was from 72.67o (homemaking) to 88.270 (personal characteristics), a difference of 15.67o. The difference in 1978 was only 1107o, ranging from 81.3/o (social participation) to 92.370 (child care).

CONCLUSIONS In attempting to determine whether there has been a significant trend toward more egalitarian expectations for marriage roles, the data from this study show strong support for such a trend among the college women included in this study. A surface look at the data gives the impression that the period of greatest change was between 1961 and 1972. However, when the difference in the length of time covered by the two periods is taken into account, the rate of change is greater for some subareas of role expectations in the earlier Period. Between 1961 and 1972 the rate of change was greatest for personal characteristics and social participation, with authority and homemaking showing the lowest rate of change followed closely by child care. "Between 1972 and 1978 the rate of change increased for authority and homemaking, remained relatively constant for child care, and declined for the other four subcategories. While these changes toward more egalitarian marriage-role expectation cannot be generalized to represent similar changes among all college women (because these three groups are not representative samples), the changes seem to reflect changing attitudes in the sociocultural milieu. And these changes in the sociocultural milieu offer the most reasonable explanation of the changes reported in this study. Within the 17-year interval covered by this study, many specific and general events have significantly affected the way American college women regard themselves as individuals and in respect to their male partners and the institution of marriage. Starting with and following the Second World War, there developed a growing emphasis on women's extrafamilial employment and a concomitant emphasis on other external aspects of women's role. The early thrust of the developing women's movement seemed to focus on the external and observable aspects of women's roles, with lesser attention given to women's self-awareness and self-esteem. Perhaps this, at least in part, accounts for

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the fact that the women in this study in 1961 were much more egalitarian in their attitudes toward authority, homemaking, child care, education, and employment and support than they were toward personal characteristics and social participation, the latter two areas being more reflective of their self-awareness and esteem. As the women's movement in the 1960s focused more on consciousness-raising efforts for women, stressing their self-worth and valuing feminism, these emphases may have influenced women's views of themselves in a way that would help account for the dramatic increase in the egalitarian responses of the 1972 group in this study in the areas of personal characteristics and social participation. Also, the fact that women were becoming more egalitarian in these other areas may have had a catalyst or "sling-shot" effect upon their thinking regarding personal characteristics and social participation, causing these two areas to catch up and even bound ahead by 1972. Perhaps, as a kind of reciprocal effect, having made gains in these two areas, women became more confident and assertive, increasing their egalitarian attitudes in such areas as authority, homemaking, and child care, which would help account for the increased rate of change in these areas between 1972 and 1978. Furthermore, the areas of authority, homemaking, and child care are all intrafamilial and interpersonal, directly involving not only one's selfexpectations but also expectations of one's spouse. That these three areas had the lowest rate of change between 1961 and 1972 and the highest rate of change between 1972 and 1978 may indicate that as the women gained confidence from their position of being more egalitarian in nonfamilial areas, they were willing to risk becoming more egalitarian in areas where their male partners were directly involved. It may also be that the women's movement indirectly served as a catalyst for change in women's attitudes, causing them to become more egalitarian in areas that directly involve men. A final observation from this study is that one of the changes between 1961 and 1972 which continued to 1978 was the increasing move toward internal consistency between the subareas. The inconsistency between subareas in the 1961 group may reflect the early phases of transition, change, and growth, during which some areas are emphasized to the neglect of others and change is irregular. The greater consistency in the later groups may reflect the maturing of a trend where change does not cease, but becomes more integrated and congruent for the people involved in it. Perhaps an impact of the feminist movement has been the more general acceptance of and identification with the feminist ideology by the two later groups-hence, the greater consistency in their overall sex-role attitudes. This idea is consistent with Smith and SeWs (1980) finding that women who identify with the feminist movement hold a more consistent sex-role ideology than traditionally oriented women.

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Will the trends toward more egalitarian expectations in marriage found in this study continue through the 1980s? Or will they be influenced by such social forces as the "Moral Majority," the "profamily" movement, and the more conservative sociopolitical mood that is emerging to reverse themselves toward more traditional role expectations? Future research that includes comparisons across time will be needed to answer these questions. REFERENCES
Adamek, R. J. College major~ work commitment and female perceptions of self, ideal women, and men's ideal women. Social Forces, 1970, 3, 92-112. Almquist, E. M., & Angrist, S. S. Career salience and atypicality of occupational choice among college women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1970, 32, 242-249. Angrist, S. S., & Almquist, E. M. Careers and contingencies. New York: Dunellen, 1975. Bernard, J. The future of marriage. New York: World, 1972. Bruning, J. L., & Kintz, B. L. Computational handbook of statistics. Glenview, i11.: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1968. Davis, F., & Olesen, V. L. The career outlook of professionally educated women. Psychiatry, 1965, 28, 334-345. Dunn, M. S. Marriage role expectations of adolescents. Marriage and Family Living, 1960, 22, 99-111. Dyer, W. G., & Urban, D. The institutionalization of equalitarian family norms. Marriage and Family Living, I958, 20, 53-60. Epstein, G. F., & Bronzaft, A. L. Female freshmen view their roles as women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1972, 34, 671-672. Geiken, K. F. Expectations concerning husband-wife responsibilities in the home. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1964, 26, 349-352. Hesselbart, S. A comparison of attitudes toward women and attitudes toward Blacks in a southern city. Sociological Symposium, 1976, 17, 45-68. Kirkpatrick, C. A comparison of generations in regard to attitudes toward feminism. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1936, 49, 343-361. Lopata, H. Z. Occupation: housewife. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Mason, K. O., & Bumpass, L. L. U.S. women's sex-role ideology, 1970. American Journal of Sociology, 1975, 80, 1212-1219. Osmond, M. W., & Martin, P. Y. Sex and sexism: A comparison of male and female sex-role attitudes. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1975, 37, 744-758. Parelius, A. P. Emerging sex-role attitudes, expectations, and strains among college women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1975, 37, 531-540. Paloma, M. M., & Garland, T. N. The married professional woman: A study in tolerance of domestication. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1971, 33, 146-153. Railings, E. M., Anderson, E., & Weeks, O. Marriage role expectations of college women. Journal of Humanics, 1974, 1, 33-38. Roper, B. S., & Labeff, E. Sex roles and feminism revisited: An intergenerational attitude comparison. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1977, 39, 113-119. Segrest, M. A., & Weeks, M. O. Comparison of the role expectations of married and cohabiting subjects. International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 1976, 6, 275-281. Smith, D. W., & Self, G. D. Feminists and traditionalists: An attitudinal comparison. Paper presented at the Alpha Kappa Delta Research Symposium, Richmond, Va. 1978. Smith, M. D., & Self, G. D. The congruence between mothers' and daughters' sex-role attitudes: A research note. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1980, 42, 105-109. Stafford, R., Backman, E., & DiBona, P. The division of labor among cohabiting and married couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1977, 39, 43-57. Wise, G. M., & Carter, D. C. A definition of the role of homemaker by two generations of women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1965, 27, 531-532.