Evan and Nancy have extremely different views on their marriage. For Nancy it's important that others consider her marriage modern, this due to her being a strong feminist and believer of equal rights and opportunity. She wants to be able to do both, have a good family life at the same time as she has a successful carrier. Evan on the other hand wants to be a modern husband, but still seems to be bound to the traditional views on a marriage. He admits that he does not do 50 percent of the housework, but he thinks Nancy dramatises the situation by saying he does close to nothing. The couple seems to be, at least Nancy does, to be very concerned about how their marriage is conceived by others outside their marriage. The chapter very well explains how different a man and a woman may think of different issues, especially this shows when it comes to the idea of Evan making dinner. For Nancy this seems like an evidence for Evan's respect and love for her feminism. For Evan it rather seems to be something he has to do to keep Nancy calm/satisfied. For Nancy it also seems like her fear for a divorce seems to discourage a too open show of feminism. A very important issue for Nancy is also that Evan shall take part in raising their son. This is something he seems to have a problem with, and it almost seems like he thinks it's more natural for the mom to raise a child.

Reading note:

The chapter does not really relate to my personal life in any particular way. I may seem some similarity between my parent's marriage and the marriage of Evan and Nancy, but on an overall scale I can not seem to relate. I think the chapter probable gives a good description of the many problems faced in a modern marriage, and at the same time it also proves that a modern marriage is not a dance on roses. I think it is sad that society over the last couple of years has seemed to value the work of a housewife lower than the work done by a working mom, but still I think this is a process one has to go through on the way to full equality. A thesis is normally faced with an antithesis, and the result of this can often be benefit society as a whole.

Summary:

Chapter 5 deals with what is normally referred to as the traditional family. In this chapter the author interviews Frank and Carmen Delacorte, two Nicaraguan immigrants, who have arranged a marriage setting with the husband as head of the family. The ideals to both partners is for the wife to work at home as a housewife, this even though the couple has big economic difficulties. Carmen herself had a working mother, and it seems like she felt neglected during her childhood. This is one of the reasons why she feels women should be their men's subordinates, and this belief kept her from taking a higher education or to work towards goals in other areas. Frank wants due to male pride to be able to finance and keep a family, and it is also important for his image that he is able to do this. Particularly this shows in relations with his fellow co-workers, where especially the boss seems to think that it is a must for real men to be able to "keep a woman at home".

Carmen and Frank do not though, as was also the case with Nancy and Evan Holt in Chapter 4, manage to live up to their ideals. Due to their economic difficulties, Carmen has to keep a part-time job. And even though she evidently wishes to dislike her job, she still can't keep herself from liking it and thinking of it as rewarding. Frank's feeling of being superior makes it easier for him to help Carmen out with the housework, and totally the author has the impression that he is doing closer to 50 percent of the total workload. His wife partly gets him to help out by acting inferior. By doing this Frank feels he is the only one who can to do the particular chore, and he's then helping his wife at the same time as his male pride grows. This obviously makes Carmen a very dependent person, but this again seems to her to be an ideal quality of a successful marriage. In reality though, it seems to the author that Carmen has a personality that could have done well also outside the home. Since Carmen and Frank's personalities do not correspond with their marriage ideals, the author insinuates that the couple would have done better with a different marriage arrangement.

Reading note:

The fifth chapter does give a very interesting contrast to chapter number 4. It's easy to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both a traditional and modern marriage, and there are definitively much the two couples could have learnt from each other. Willingness to adapt and change is definitively essential when entering a marriage, but having realistic expectations on what to expect is equally important. Evan and Nancy definitively had different hopes for their marriage. Carmen and Frank at least seemed to be wishing for the same. Still they obviously faced some economic obstacles which did not allow them to live out their marriage dream, which involved children being raised by their parents and growing up in a safe environment, plus evidently having a fairly strong division of responsibility between the sexes.

The author sees it as a problem that Carmen is feeling inferior to Frank, and this is obviously the case. Still I feel that the overall assumption of the chapter is that staying home automatically makes one inferior, but I do not believe this should be the case. I think it is a paradox that many Western societies, this of course excluding Japan (where the process is more recent), over the last couple of years have taken part in a continuing process of devaluing the work of women who choose to stay home to raise their children, this at the same time as one has started realising how important stable and healthy families are for the overall quality of a society. Some sociologists claim that the rising crime rate over the last 40 years is closely connected with the change of the normal family structure.