Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Publication Citation

8 Journal of Family Theory & Review 10 (2016)

Abstract

Research comparing the relative significance of economic exchange theories and gender norms on parents’ division of income-producing and domestic responsibilities often fails to consider sufficiently the role that marriage may play. This article shows that, in the United States, numerous aspects of state and federal law relating to marriage encourage spouses to specialize in distinct breadwinning and caretaking roles. Same-sex marriage offers new opportunities to assess the importance of marriage in household labor allocation decisions while controlling for gender. For any data gathered before June 2015, however, it may be distorting to characterize same-sex couples as simply “married” or “un-married”; rather, legal recognition during the past 10 years is better conceptualized as discrete bundles of rights and tracked accordingly. This article, written by a legal scholar, provides substantive legal analysis that is integral to developing a research agenda in this area.

This article received the 2016 Feldman Award from the Groves Conference on Marriage and Family; this award recognizes a scholarly publication that has made a significant contribution related to ethnicity and/or gender in families.

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