Abstract
The existence of a family “kinship role” is hypothesized and tested via data from interviews with 210 couples drawn randomly from a list of parents of children in grade 3 in Yakima County, Washington. Heavy majorities of both husbands and wives affirmed an obligation to kin and reported feelings of disapproval for non-performance of kinship obligations. Assessment of norms regarding the division of labor by sex with respect to kinship obligations revealed that kinship behavior tends to be defined as sex-specific. Selected socioeconomic and situational variations in definition and performance of the kinship role are noted. The impact of selected background and contextual factors is shown to vary by specific kinship task as well as by sex of respondent. The results corroborate other researchers’ findings that wives dominate communication with kindred, but also suggest that for certain other tasks such as making decisions about allocation of family resources, wives play a lesser role than husbands.
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