In What Ways Do Gender‐Related Attributes and Beliefs Affect Marriage?

Abstract

This article examines spouses' sex role ideology and personality dispositions in connection with marital behavior patterns. It shows that sex role ideology and sex typing in personality are distinct properties, that husbands and wives typically bring to marriage a mixture of gender‐related attributes and beliefs that, in turn, create marital behavior patterns that contain a variety of traditional and nontraditional elements. Spouses' sex role attitudes and the extent to which they possess stereotypic personality attributes, such as “masculinity” (instrumentality) and “femininity” (expressiveness), are examined in connection with marital roles, the extent to which spouses communicate positive and negative affect to each other, and the amount of time they spend with friends and family. The results suggest a new direction for studying the intersection of gender and relationships, one that moves beyond simplistic typologies that categorize marriages along a single dimension of traditionalism to one that examines the character and quality of the marriage as it is influenced by (or covaries with) particular gender‐related attributes and beliefs.