CORRELATION BETWEEN GENDER ROLE AND MARITAL SATISFACTION AMONG FILIPINO WIVES

Berta Esti Ari Prasetya

Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the correlation between wife’s gender role and  wife’s marital satisfaction. A total of 129 Filipino wives participated in this study. Pearson-r 
correlational analyses were performed and showed that there is no correlation between wife’s gender role and wife’s marital satisfaction. (r = - .21, p < .05).    

Key words: wife’s gender role, wife’s marital satisfaction.

Introduction

Many researches have suggested that marital quality is very important for married couples as Carstensen, Graff, Levenson, & Gottman (1996) noted that it has broad implications for the individual’s mental and physical health. Unhappy marriages may entail physical violence as well as abuse (Markman, Renick, Floyd, & Stanley, 1993) and even murder (Tariq & Anila, 1993), decreases psychological well-being, increases psychological distress (Ross, Mirowsky, & Goldsteen, 1990), and is associated with greater increases in depressive mood over time for females than for males (Dehle & Weiss, 1998). Wickrama, Lorenz, Conger, and Elder (1997) found that the initial level of and the change in the marital quality of husbands and wives correlate with the initial level of and the change in physical health, after controlling for the influence of work stress, education, and income. The quality of the interaction between spouses in the marriage will become an important determinant of parenthood quality (Belsky and Fish,1991).

Although it is very clear that marital quality has a great impact in human life, research suggests that marriage affects men differently from women. Some finding shows that having a happy marriage or marital quality appears to be more crucial and significantly beneficial for wives rather than for husbands (Belsky & Fish, 1991; Hess & Soldo, 1985; Levenson, Carstensen, & Gottman, 1993; Ross et al., 1990).

A question that arises now is: What factors may be related to the marital satisfaction of the wives? Nowadays more and more women are highly knowledgeable and well informed on scholarly and civic issues. In fact, a report issued by Asian Development Bank (1994) entitled Education of Women in Asia, supports this by mentioning that, in some Asian countries, women have gained access to increasing levels of education and coincidentally, to an increased level of work force participation. In the Philippines, for instance, Medina (2001) noted that married women today have relatively more options as to what role to play, unlike the earlier years that the role of women was lingered in family works.

In this changing society, women’s role in the family may also experience changing. It is plausible that the gender role of the wives may also play an important function in the marital satisfaction among the wives in this changing society. The traditional gender role believes that a woman’s place is mainly at home. A traditional division of women somehow limits them to explore their capabilities in other areas in life outside of their family life. One research has shown that the traditional division of labor reduced wives’ marital satisfaction, although it seems to increase that of the husbands’ (White, Booth, & Edwards, 1986). Other studies addressing this issue are ambiguous: Snyder (1975) found that there was no relation between the two, whereas Huber and Spitze (1980) mention that nontraditional wives are less happy with their marriages. Hochschild (as cited in Amato & Booth, 1995) asserts that egalitarian marriages are the happiest. Most of the studies were done in western communities. In relation to this, therefore, it is also interesting to explore how gender role affects marital satisfaction among Asian wives, especially in the Philippines where the traditional role continues to be strong.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURES

Marital Satisfaction

Spanier and Cole (as cited in Schumm, et al., 1986) defined marital satisfaction as a subjective evaluation about how an individual feels about his/her spouse, his/her marriage and his/her marital relationship.

Marital satisfaction will be examined in this study in terms of perceived marital satisfaction rather than the actual marital satisfaction. As Berger and Kellner mentioned (as cited in Rhyne, 1981) “it is not what happens in that marriage, but how the partners understand or define what has happened that is more crucial”(p. 942). Taken altogether, marital satisfaction is defined as a subjective evaluation of an individual’s feeling about his/her spouse, his/her marriage, and his/her marital relationship. Marital satisfaction will be examined in this study in terms of perceived rather than the actual marital satisfaction.

  

Gender Role

Anselmi and Law (1998) noted that social psychology literature defines “gender roles as socially and culturally defined prescriptions and beliefs about the behavior and emotions of men and women” (p. 195). It describes how someone acts out his masculinity or her femininity. Gender roles influence how a person perceives others, how that person feels and how that person behaves to others.

In a marital relationship, the idea of gender role will be implemented in the structure of spouse role. Bott (1957) first developed the concept of  joint and segregated role relationship. She described marital relation as joint (now more commonly known as egalitarian), when the spouses perform tasks together or when either spouse carries out the same activity at different times. Those who have modern gender role tend to implement this joint role or egalitarian role in their marital relationship.  In contrast, segregated relationships occur when the spouses perform separate tasks (Rogler & Procidano, 1989). In a segregated relationship, the spouses tend to apply traditional gender roles, that is, women and men have their own specific roles determined by their sex as man or woman.

Considering all the aforementioned factors, this study will define gender role as socially and culturally defined prescriptions and beliefs about the behavior and emotions of men and women that will influence how people act out their masculinity and femininity. The type of gender role that will be studied in this study refers to the kinds of gender role that is implemented by the wives in the structure of spouse role, either:

1. Traditional gender role, which is based on polar, dichotomous conceptions of the nature and roles of men versus women. Those who have the traditional gender role believe that women and men have their own specific role that is determined by their sex, as man or woman in their marital relationship. This refers to the gender role behavior stereotype, such that the man’s role is the breadwinner, the head of the family, responsible for the social connection between family members and the people outside, whereas the woman’s role is staying at home, doing the household chores and taking care of the children, and providing emotional support for the family.

2. Modern or egalitarian gender role that is characterized by flexible and dynamic transcendence of sex-role constraints that are not specified by sex. Those who have modern or egalitarian gender role are not tied with the role behavior stereotype. Instead, the difference between the role of man and woman is not clearly delineated. Therefore, they are more flexible in playing the role during the course of marital relationship. The wife may perform tasks that are also carried out by her husband at a different time.  

Gender role and its correlation with marital satisfaction. Kitson and Sussman (1982) conducted a study among divorcing men and women in Metropolitan Cleveland, USA. It was found that for women, gender role conflict is the second most frequent complaint that they experienced in their marital relationship.

Studies of gender role and its relation to marital relationship revealed different findings throughout the years. In the western society, the 1960s studies indicated that marital happiness was greatest in traditional marriages in which husbands performed the central provider role (Vannoy & Philliber, 1992). A study conducted by Snyder (1975) found no correlation between the traditional division of labor and marital satisfaction. However, later studies provide support that there is a correlation between gender role and marital satisfaction, but there were conflicting findings with regard to the direction of the correlation. 

A study on gender role that suggested correlation between gender role and marital satisfaction was conducted by Huber and Spitze (1980). They found that nontraditional wives are less happy with their marriages. These result was supported by other researches such as what was conducted by Amato and Booth (1995) pointed out that wives with less traditional gender role attitudes (i.e., wives with more egalitarian gender role) have lower perceived marital quality.

But those results were contradicted by other researches.  White et al. (1986) found that the more traditional division of labor reduced wives’ marital satisfaction, although it seemed to increase husbands’ marital satisfaction. Rogler and Procidano (1989) conducted a study among intergenerationally linked Puerto Rican families and found similar result that the wives’ marital satisfaction is associated with egalitarian spousal roles. Hochschild (as cited in Amato & Booth, 1995), also found that egalitarian marriages are the happiest. Gottman and Notorius (2002a) also supported this finding by asserting that egalitarian couples have the highest marital satisfaction.

In the Philippines, an early study conducted by Lapuz (1977) found that role reversals (therefore, tends to comply with egalitarian gender role) is one source of marital crisis that undermines Filipino marriages. However, this result was not supported by the study conducted by Dayan et al. (2001). They found that role orientation is a weak stressor for the majority of marriage annulment petitioners in their study. A later study conducted by Murillo (2004) among Filipino couples found that wives’ gender role attitude is directly related and predictive of their marital satisfaction. It was revealed in her study that the more egalitarian the wives’ gender role attitudes, the more they tend to report higher levels of marital satisfaction.

Observing the situation nowadays in the Philippine setting, it seems that wives are also expected to do more than just stay home and take care of the family. The fact that there are more women who go to school and who achieve higher education have paved the way for them to plunge into the work market. In relation to this condition, Murillo (2004) asserted that women need to have flexible self-concept and attitudes that allow them to accommodate varying demands, in order to successfully carry out the roles of wife, mother, and paid worker simultaneously. This flexibility will allow them to be successful in performing these multiple roles and later on will enable them to reap all the psychological rewards that come from each. This may allow them to experience more positive relations and experience less marital conflicts with their husbands, all of which contribute to higher level of marital satisfaction. In relation to this, she asserted that those who have egalitarian gender roles are believed to have such flexible self-concept and attitude. Therefore, those who have more egalitarian gender role will tend to experience higher marital satisfaction. 

Statement of the Problem : Is gender role correlated with marital satisfaction among Filipino wives?

Hypothesis : Gender role is correlated with marital satisfaction among Filipino wives. The more a wife holds a modern or egalitarian gender role, the higher the marital satisfaction.

METHOD

This was an explanatory and correlational type of study that tried to test the hypotheses proposed earlier. A survey method, specifically the questionnaire method, was used in data collection, considering that this method could be very economical, it could touch on some sensitive questions, social background information, attitudes, beliefs, values, behavior intentions, and some subjective phenomenon (Singleton & Straits, 1999), which was the nature of the issues of this study. A convenience sampling method was used in data collection.   

Measurements

This study dwelled on subjective evaluations on the part of the participants. It was based on self-report measurements. In order to collect the data, this study used:

1. Gender Role Questionnaire.

GRQ utilized a Likert Scale style. The participants were asked to give ratings ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with the statements in the questionnaires reflecting their belief about the role of man or woman. GRQ measures whether participants lean either toward the traditional gender role or modern gender role.

It contain of 10 items with the coefficient of Cronbach’s alpha obtained was .73. The total score ranged from 10 for the lowest possible to 50 for the highest possible. The higher the score the more traditional the belief about the roles of husband and wife.  

2. Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. Wife’s marital satisfaction was measured by Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMS). It contained three questions that were theoretically based on Spanier and Cole’s (as cited in Schumm, et al., 1986) conceptual distinction between satisfaction with spouse, marriage, and the marriage relationship. The total score ranged from 3 to 21.  

This scale has been administered to different kinds of populations. It performed reliably with Cronbach’s alpha was.89 for women (Schumm, Scanlon, Crow, Green, & Buckler, 1983b). In the present study, the reliability testing resulted in a Cronbach’s alpha of .96. All the items showed high item-total reliability, ranging from .91 to .93. Evidence for the validity of the scale was provided by the study of Grover, Paff-Bergen, Russell, and Schumm, (as cited in Sabatelli, 1988).

Participants

The subjects of this study were Filipino married women, who were 25-55 years old, who were working, living with the husband, and were residing in Metro Manila during the time of the data gathering. There were 129 respondents who participated in this study.

The mean of their length of marriage was 11.38 years. The mean age of the participants was 36.9 years. Most of them have two children.

The personal data of the participants revealed the following profile on educational attainment:  high school (2.3%), college (72.7%), master’s degree (22.7%), and doctoral degree (2.3%). These participants were employees of private institutions (45.6%), teachers or professors (24%), nurses (22.4%), licensed professionals (3.2%), self-employed (3.2%), and government employees (1.6%).

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Gender Role and Marital Satisfaction

The result of correlational analysis that was performed in this study shows that gender role is not significantly correlated with marital satisfaction with r = - .12, p > .05

This result does not give support to most of researches on gender role that have been reviewed earlier in this study, either in Western setting or in Asian setting, that found a correlation between gender role and marital satisfaction. It does not validate researches that give support to traditional gender role as the more beneficial gender role to attain wife's marital satisfaction (Amato & Booth, 1995; Huber & Spitze, 1980;  Lapuz, 1977). It neither validates researches that give support to egalitarian gender role as more beneficial gender role to achieve wife's marital satisfaction (Hochschild, as cited in Amato & Booth, 1995; Gottman & Notorius, 2002a; Murillo, 2004; Rogler & Procidano, 1989; White et al., 1986). Instead, this result seems to validate the earlier research conducted by Snyder (1975) and also Vannoy and Philliber (1992) who asserted that there is no correlation between gender role and marital satisfaction or marital quality.

The possible explanation for this result may due to the fact that the correlation between gender role and marital satisfaction may not solely depend on what gender role attitude the wives hold, but will also depend on their husbands' gender role attitudes. It means that the compatibility between the husband's and the wife's gender role is the important thing in affecting their marital satisfaction. This line of reasoning is in accord with what is reported by Craddock (as cited in Pierce, 1983) in a survey of marriage counselor's perception of the impact of social change upon marital dysfunction. He found that it is the incongruent combination of gender roles both of husband and wife that is related to marital dysfunction. The counselors reported that major problems emerge from marriages between traditional males and egalitarian females. These incongruent performance expectations would lead to conflicts and frustrations in the early months of marriage. On the contrary, the counselors in his study reported fewer problems involving egalitarian husbands and traditional wives.

Craddock (as cited in Pierce, 1983) contended that couples whose role expectations are congruent were not seen to be as likely to encounter significant marital difficulties, whether they are harmoniously traditional or egalitarian. His study implies that the wife's gender role is not the sole determinant in their marital satisfaction; instead the husband's gender role is the one to be considered in understanding the dynamics of their relationships.  This is also in line with what is proposed by Scarr et al. (as cited in Medina, 2001) that “marital harmony depends not so much on what the roles of the spouses are but on whether or not they agree on their roles and play them consistently” (p. 187). Therefore, it is understandable that the result of this study does not yield a significant correlation between wife's gender role and her marital satisfaction, because this study investigated on wife's gender role only.

A study conducted by Wilkie et al. (1998) found that the one who should be doing the housework or breadwinning has little influence on marital satisfaction for both husbands and wives. It is the intrinsic reward from what they prefer that influences their marital satisfaction. Wives who take pride in being good at their jobs (i.e., tend to be egalitarian) and those wives who personally prefer a more conventional division of domestic responsibilities (i.e., tend to be traditional) are more satisfied with their marriages than wives who do not experience intrinsic rewards from their paid employment and who prefer more domestic responsibilities (Wilkie et al., 1998). Furthermore, Wilkie et al. (1998) suggested that greater responsibilities for housework will increase marital satisfaction among women who have conventional preferences (i.e., more traditional gender role) but for women who prefer to share responsibilities (i.e., more egalitarian gender role) it will decrease their marital satisfaction. On the other hand, whereas paid work responsibilities improve marital satisfaction among women who prefer to share responsibilities (egalitarian gender role) than women with conventional preferences (traditional gender role). In short, it appears that it is not preferences on gender role alone that affect marital satisfaction, but the match between what they prefer with their actual work, complemented by intrinsic rewards from their preference, that affects their marital satisfaction.    

Other possible explanations may be related with Vannoy and Philliber's study (1992), which pointed out that the husband's expectations that resulted from his gender role are more important in determining the spouse's marital satisfaction compared to the wife's expectations. It is the role expectations of the husband and the wife's perception of those expectations that are affecting more the marital quality of both spouses. It was found that the more traditional the husband's expectations are, the lower the quality of their marriage will be. On the contrary, the wife's gender role and the wife's role expectations, and the husbands' perceptions of those expectations are unrelated to marital quality experienced by either spouse (Vannoy & Philliber, 1992). They also found that it is the husband's expectations which determine the nature of the marriage. It means that only if the husband is willing to allow her wife to work and to share household and child-care tasks that the nontraditional or egalitarian marriage can occur.

Another way of interpreting the absence of correlation between gender role and marital relationship in this study may also be explained using a theory proposed by Hicks and Platt (1970). They proposed that there are two basic marital types:

1. The institutional. This marital type views family as matrix of defined, interlocking and independent role. According to this type, the compatibility between role expectations and actual role performance will determine marital happiness and marital satisfaction. In relation to the gender role attitude, the actual fulfillment of these expectations that came from their belief about their gender role is considered to be important in determining their marital satisfaction.

2. The companionship.  This marital type places greater emphasis on the affective aspects of the relationship. In this type of marriage, the frequency of companionship and expression of love becomes important in determining their marital satisfaction. Variables such as affection for spouse, sexual fulfillment, companionship, and communication are considered important.

In relation to those marital types, a study conducted by Rhyne (1981) reviewed earlier found that women tend to focus more on the companionship aspect of the marriage. Therefore, it is plausible that women tend to believe in the companionship marital type more than the institutional. They may tend to place greater emphasis on the affective aspect of the relationship rather than the compatibility of their gender role expectations and the role performance.  Therefore, it is understandable that gender role turned out to be not significant in determining their marital satisfaction. Other factors such as the frequency of companionship, expression of love, affection of spouse, sexual fulfillment, companionship, and communication may be found to be more important for wives rather than their gender role (Rhyne, 1981).

REFERENCES

                                                                                           

Anselmi, L.D. & Law, L.A. (1998). Question of gender: Perspectives and paradoxes. Boston: Mc Graw Hill.

Asian Development Bank. (1994). Education of women in Asia. Manila: Asian Development Bank.

Belsky,J. & Fish, M. (1991). Continuity and discontinuity in infant negative and positive emotionality: Family antecedents and attachment consequences. Developmental Psychology, 27, 421-431.

Bott, E. (1957). Family and social network. New York: Free Press.

Bulatao, J. (1978). The Manileno’s mainsprings. Four readings on Phillippine values. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press.

Carstensen, L.L., Graff, J., Levenson, R.W., Gottman, J.M. (1996). Affect in intimate relationships: The developmental course of marriage. In C. Magai & S.H. Mc Fadden (Eds.), Hand book of emotion, adult development and aging (pp 227-247). California: Academic Press.

Dayan, N.A., Magno, E.T.T., Tarroja, M.C.H. (2001). Marriages made on earth. Manila: De La Salle University Press Inc.

 Dehle, C. & Weiss, R.L. (1998). Sex differences in prospective associations between marital quality and depressed mood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 1002-1011.

Gottman, J.M. & Notarius, C.I. (2002a). Marital research in the 20th century and a research agenda for the 21st century. Family Process, 41: 159-197.

Hess, B. & Soldo, B. (1985). Husband and wife networks. In W.J. Sauer & R.T. Coward (Eds.), Social support networks and the care of the elderly: Theory, research and practice (pp. 67-92). New York: Springer

Hicks, M. W., & Platt, M. (1970). Marital happiness and stability: A review of the research in the sixties. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 32, 553-574.

Huber, J. & Spitze, G. (1980). Considering divorce: An expansion of Becker’s theory of marital instability. The American Journal of Sociology, 86, 75-89

Kitson, G.C. & Sussman, M.B. (1982). Marital complaints, demographic characteristics, and symptoms of mental distress in divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 44, 87 – 101.

Lapuz, L.V. (1977). Filipino marriage in crisis. Quezon City: New Day Publisher.

Levenson, R.W., Carstensen, L.L., & Gottman, J.M. (1993). Longterm marriage: Age, gender and satisfaction. Psychology and Aging, 8, 301-313.

Markman, H.J. , Renick, M.J., Floyd , F.J., Stanley, S.M. (1993). Preventing marital distress through communication and conflict management training: A 4 and 5 year follow-up. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 70-77. 

Medina, B.T.G. (2001). The Filipino family. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

Murillo, Y. C. L. (2004). Marital equality and marital satisfaction.  Unpublished master’s thesis, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines.

Pierce, A.S. (1983). Pre-marital expectations and marital satisfaction of a selected sample of Filipino-American couples. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of the Philippiness, Quezon City, Philippines. 

Rogler, L.H. & Procidano, M.E. (1989). Egalitarian spouse relations and wives’ marital satisfaction in intergenerationally linked Puerto Rican families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 37-39.

Ross, C.E., Mirowsky, J., & Goldsteen, K. (1990). The impact of the family on health: The decade in review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 1059-1078.

Rhyne, D. (1981). Bases of marital satisfaction among men and women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 43, 941-955.

Sabatelli, R.M. (1988). Measurement issues in marital research: A review and critique of contemporary survey instruments. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50, 891-915.

Schumm, W.R., Scanlon, E.D., Crow, C.L., Green, D.M., & Buckler, D.L. (1983b). Characteristic of the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale in a sample of 79 married couples. Psychological Reports, 53, 583-588.

Schumm, W.R., Paff-Bergen, L.A., Hatch, R.C., Obiorah, F.C., Copeland, J.M., Meens, L.D., et al. (1986). Concurrent and discriminant validity of the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 381-387. 

Singleton, R. & Straits, B.C. (1999). Approaches to social research (3^rd  ed). New York: Oxford University.

Snyder, D.K. (1979). Multidimensional assessment of marital satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 813-823

Tariq, P.N. & Anila, (1993). Marital maladjustment and the crime of murder among Pakistani female criminals. International Journal of Psychology, 28, 809-819

White, L.K., Booth, A., & Edwards, J.N. (1986). Children and marital happiness: Why negative correlation. Journal of Family Issues, 7, 131-147.

Wickrama, K.A.S, Lorenz, F.O., Conger, R.D. & Elder, J.G.H. (1997). Marital quality and physical illness: A latent growth curve analysis. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59, 143-155.

Wilkie, J. R., Ferre, M. M., & Ratcliff, K. S. (1998). Gender and fairness: Marital satisfaction in two-earner couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 577-594.

Vannoy, D. & Philliber, W.W. (1992). Wife’s employment and quality of marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 387-398.