Breadwinners and Homemakers

The family usually divides the work between them, wives and husbands. Two terms must be defined that describe the couple’s roles. The first term is the breadwinner system, it describes the husband who works and earns income to support the entire nuclear family. The other term is the homemaker, it describes the wife who stays at home and does the domestic duties.

The Traditional Breadwinner and Homemaker

The traditional family consists of the breadwinner husband and the homemaker wife. In this patriarchal society, the husband is the head of the family and holds the power, because he has the ability to provide money or food for his wife and children. The traditional breadwinner husband seems to have the cultural respect. On the other hand, the homemaker wife usually lacks of control over one’s work, because she has to spend her day at home taking care of the house and the children.  

Breadwinner Wife and Homemaker Husband

In this system, the husbands and wives switch their roles, as the wife becomes the breadwinner by going out to the work, while the husband stays at home taking care of the children and do the domestic duties.

Since this system is out of expectation, husbands who are laid off or do not work tend to do less homework. This is because husband is expected to be the breadwinner not a homemaker, as he feels his masculinity is being under threatened. In this particular situation, some households may have some tension because of switching of the roles between the husband and the wife. The fact of nobody wants to feel useless, unappreciated and overloaded. Everyone wants a consequential work, so this lead to both of the couples be in the working field.

Families of the 21^st Century

In the last generation, it is noticed that many women are moving to the working field. Many women don’t want to continue what their mothers did, being homemakers. They are bored from cleaning, washing and doing all other house duties plus taking care of the children. Today’s women have other priorities other than marriage. Most of the women want to study in universities and have different degrees. Moreover, men in those days want to get married to those who are with graduated from universities, so that they have the opportunity to work. Husbands support their wives to work now a days to help their husbands from the income perspectives and to get the best for their kids. This situation may not matter to husbands with high income, but still women want to show themselves outside the house area.

The secondary shift

In sociology, the secondary shift known as the jobs that working wives do to run the household after they finish the workday. In Cinematic Sociology book, it indicates three types of couples. The first type is the traditional couple, in which both of the couples work outside the house for wages, but it is expected from wives to complete their domestic duties once they come back home. Besides, it is expected from husbands to their traditional duties such as handling the car problems. The second type is transitional; in which the husbands help their wives in the domestic duties. The third type is egalitarian; in which the couples divide the domestic duties between them. However, most of the times the wives have the majority of work, because they have the ability to organize and make all the work is done. The secondary shift helps both of the couples to drop their stress and both of them are benefiting from this arrangement to have a successful happily marriage life.

Family Roles in Doha

 During my last Cinema & Society class, we had a conversation on family and family roles, and we had the chance to express our thoughts and opinions. For this blog, I will discuss that matter and go into detail as to how it applies to our culture in Doha and the Arabian Gulf in general.

Traditionally and since we can ever remember, men’s job was to provide financial support for the family, hence their name “breadwinners”. Women, on the other hand, were responsible for taking care of the house, the kids, and ensuring it all went well. This is how women earned the name “homemakers”. All this goes back to our existing views and ideas about gender and who we believe is supposed to do what. 

          
The way all this applies to Doha is that during the last century and for the most part, men and women both assumed their traditional family roles, with men being the “breadwinners” and women being the “homemakers”. However, contrary to popular belief, men and women have mostly been breadwinners and homemakers simply because we decided to arrange things in such a way, not because it is the right and only way to go.

 Nowadays in Doha and in the Gulf, the number of working women has increased. Sometimes, this is the case because the “bread” earned by the father isn’t enough to cover for all the expenses and financial needs of the family. At other times, this is because of another relatively recent phenomenon, which is that nowadays more and more women are taking more interest in completing an undergraduate study after completing high school. By going to work and earning their own money, they feel more powerful and worth more than if they just stayed at home and took care of the kids. Although I am a personal believer in that some things women do at home, such as taking care of their children, are of great importance, the reason they and most of society do not see it this way is because, as David Grazian said in his book Mix It Up, “non-economic activity is devalued in today’s modern capitalist society”. Perhaps another reason that would cause a woman to go to work in this part of the world is if her children have all grown up, and so she basically has nothing to do at home and decides to go work to spend her time doing something useful.   

Before ending this blog, I decided to conclude with a few useful tips for those of you who are already married or do plan to get married someday. First, Grazian mentions a study that observed that women’s stress levels go down when their husbands help them with the housework. Grazian also stated that another study concluded that women who work are happier than those who are homemakers, which might make you re-think letting your wife go to work. That’s all for today.