marriage, intersecting interests, and the woman perspective

[iverglas]

2. patriarchy

The link I gave in the previous post

http://www.michaeladams.ca/articles/pdf/here_father.pdf

is to this article, from which I'll quote a bit. (Lengthy article, these excerpts are fair use/dealing; my emphases.)

HERE, FATHER DOESN’T KNOW BEST

What makes us different: patriarchal attitudes are flourishing south of the
border, but Canadians are showing a marked divergence of opinion, says
pollster MICHAEL ADAMS

Wednesday, July 4, 2001

... Nearly 20 years ago, my colleagues at Environics in Toronto and CROP in Montreal began a study of Canadian social values. In our first survey of Canadian values in 1983, we asked Canadians if they strongly or somewhat agreed or disagreed that: “The father of the family must be the master in his own house.” ...

The “father must be master” question has become legendary at Environics. We love it because it measures a traditional, patriarchal attitude to authority in our most cherished institution: the family. Sons inherit the land, starting with the first -- primogeniture prevents estates from being subdivided like amoebas. Sons inherit the family business as in Smith and Son. Sons, not daughters, are named “Junior” in the hope they will prove worthy of their father’s aristocratic seed.

That first time, a total of 42 per cent of Canadians agreed that the father should be master, 15 per cent strongly so and 27 per cent somewhat so. ...

Nineteen ninety-two was the first year we began conducting social-values research in the United States, the world capital of individualism and egalitarianism, of civil rights movements and affirmative action (remember, an American was the first to deflower the feminine mystique). We speculated that the United States would be ahead of Canada and France on this trend.

We found to our surprise that 42 per cent of Americans told us the father should be master, while 57 per cent disagreed and 1 per cent had no opinion. ...

In our 2000 Canadian survey, only 5 per cent reported being strongly in support of
patriarchal authority, down from the 15 per cent we found in 1983 (bad news for Stockwell
Day). This decline was an authentic social revolution. ...

Meanwhile, we found that where 42 per cent of Americans believed the father should be master in 1992, the number increased to 44 per cent in 1996. We wondered if this was a statistical anomaly. We went back into the field in 2000 ... This time, 48 per cent of Americans said the father of the family must be master in his own home; 51 per cent disagreed and 1 per cent had no opinion.

And I have found an update.

http://americanenvironics.com/PDF/UpdatetoRoadmap2008.pdf

Sexuality and gender. Between 1992 and 2004, the percentage of Americans who agreed with the statement “the father of the family must be the master in his own house” went from 42 to 52 percent. But, at the same time, the percentage who agreed that “taking care of the home and kids is as much a man’s work as women’s work” rose from 86 percent in 1992 to 89 percent in 2004. How can this be? the answer may be that people hold different attitudes around gender roles and gender equality depending on the social domain (home vs. the workplace) in question, or that the definition of “master” itself has changed.

The aVS tracks distinct values trends relating to gender, including Patriarchy, Sexism, Flexible Gender Identity, Flexible Family, Gender Parity, Traditional Family, Traditional Gender Identity, and Reverse Sexism. Just because an individual takes a progressive position on one value doesn’t mean she holds a similar position on the other. we also have question batteries around premarital sex, promiscuity, adultery, homosexuality, and an experimental battery on “masculine overcompensation.”

Canada has had legal same-sex marriage for a decade or so now; Canadians have markedly and increasingly non-patriarchal values.

Same-sex marriage has been rejected repeatedly in many places and by several methods in the US; USAmercans have markedly and increasingly patriarchal values.

Coincidence? I suspect not.