A Methodological Analysis of Feminism in Relation to Marital Adjustment

Abstract

I N THE confusion of the modern world, the liberal is often caught between two fires, assailed by both radical and conservative. Not a few political liberals see themselves as about to be crushed between the upper millstone of Fascism and the nether millstone of Communism. It is also true that in the narrower field of sociological research the middle way may be the hard way and the liberal in methodology may be attacked by both the quantitative and the nonquantitative research advocates. The purpose of this paper is to present a specific piece of middle-of-theroad research in its methodological setting. It is hoped that this procedure will aid in making clear the following thesis. With the opposition of the qualitative and quantitative methodological camps, there tends to be a dissociation of criteria of scientific worth. Given this dissociation, a readily classified piece of scientific work may be judged only according to the criteria stressed in one methodological universe. The middle-of-the-road study may be attacked as lacking the full assortment of virtues stressed by the statistician and also for absence of virtues revered by the nonquantitative researcher. Notwithstanding this attack on what, to both sides, savors of treason, the middle-of-the-road study might rate fairly high, if all criteria of scientific worth were fairly applied. The combining of a research report with a methodological essay may be justified on various grounds. To some critics, the research report may seem the cake and the methodological essay the frosting. For others, the analogy may be reversed. While dealing in analogies, one should not stop short of the suggestion that for more hostile critics it may all seem tripe. At least, there is an attempt at a balanced ration. It may further be noted that division of labor is often carried too far. Not infrequently, one sociologist passes judgment upon research methods but finds little time to do research. Another may plod through the drudgery of painstaking research which is not illuminated by detached methodological insight. Perhaps the humble research to be here reported may be regarded as an attempt to earn the right to a bit of speculation concerning sociological method. It was perhaps inevitable by virtue of some strain toward consistency that quantitative methods developed in the other natural sciences should slowly permeate the culture pattern of American sociology. Often, extreme claims were made in support of measurement as essential to any truly scientific procedure. Extremes generate extremes in cultural processes. Vested intellectual interests were supported in their opposition by others sincerely