The Enduring Institution of Marriage: Deinstitutionalization and the Case of Same-Sex Marriage

• In Event: 3523 - Family Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 9: Sexual and Gender Identities in Families

Abstract

Family scholars disagree about whether to conceptualize same-sex marriage as an alternative of or extension to heterosexual marriage. Both views, however, presuppose a certain fixed form of marriage upon which to base their comparison. Institutionalized marriages of the past were characterized by a highly unequal division of paid labor while so called individualized marriages of the present are theorized to be more egalitarian in this regard. This study evaluates the institutional status of American marriage today by assessing how same-sex couples divide paid labor in comparison to their heterosexual counterparts in a variety of relational situations. Using data from the 2017 American Community Survey, I use a zero-inflated negative binomial regression to test for differences in usual hours worked between same-sex and heterosexual couples who are married or unmarried and who do or do not have children. However equally (or unequally) couples split their paid labor is used as an indicator for how egalitarian that relationship is and for how it compares to historical and present-day conceptions of marriage. I find that being married, rather than not married, not only increases the degree to which couples split work unevenly, for both same-sex and different-sex couples with and without children, but that it also has a greater influence in increasing this aspect of inequality between partners than does either their sex composition or parenting responsibilities. I conclude therefore that marriage is still institutionalized in this regard and that same-sex marriage is best understood as an extension rather than an alternative to heterosexual marriage.

Author

• Greg Wurm, University of Notre Dame