Skip to main content
Log in

Is It Our Day or the Bride’s Day? The Division of Wedding Labor and Its Meaning for Couples

  • Published:
Qualitative Sociology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on qualitative interviews with southern California heterosexual engaged couples, I examine how wedding planning work is divided between the bride and the groom and how couple’s meaningfully interpret the division of labor. I find that couple’s wedding planning work disproportionately falls to women, especially that labor that is invisible. Wedding work, in many respects, is another form of unpaid and unappreciated women’s work, not that unlike housework. Yet, couples do not understand wedding work as an unequal pursuit. Couples use an assortment of interactional strategies to interpret wedding work as a joint and equal enterprise.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barker, D. (1978). A proper wedding. In M. Corbin (Ed.), The couple. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beirnat, M., & Wortman, C. B. (1991). Sharing of home reponsibilities between professionally employed women and their husbands. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 844–869.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, P. L., & Kellner, H. (1977). Marriage and the social construction of reality. In P. L. Berger (Ed.), Facing up to modernity (pp. 5–22). New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berk, S. F. (1985). The gender factory: The apportionment of work in American households. New York: Plenum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, J. (1981). The good provider role: Its rise and fall. American Psychologist, 36, 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blair, S. L., & Johnson, M. P. (1992). Wives’ perception of the fairness of the division of household labor: The intersection of housework and ideology. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 570–581.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blair, S. L., & Lichter, D. T. (1991). Measuring the household division of labor: Gender segregation of housework among American couples. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 91–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bumpass, L., & Lu, H. H. (2001). Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s family context in the U.S. Population Studies, 54, 29–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Census Bureau, U. S. (2000). Marital status and living arrangements. Current Population Reports, Series P, 420–497.

  • Cheal, D. (1988). The ritualization of family ties. American Behavioral Scientist, 31, 632–643.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embededness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1208–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cotrane, S. (1996). Family man: Fatherhood, housework and gender equality. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeMaris, A., & Longmore, M. A. (1996). Ideology, power and equity: Testing competing explanations for the perception of fairness in household labor. Social Forces, 74, 1043–1071.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeVault, M. L. (1987). Doing housework: Feeding and family life. In N. a. G. Gerstl, H. E. (Ed.), Families and work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeVault, M. L. (1991). Feeding the family: The social organization of caring work as gendered work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duxbury, L., Higgins, C., & Lee, C. (1994). Work-family conflict: A comparison by gender, family type and perceived control. Journal of Family Issues, 15, 449–466.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrensaft, D. (1987). Parenting together. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emerson, R., Fretz, R., & Shaw, L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferree, M. M. (1990). Beyond separate spheres: Feminism and family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 866–884.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford: Stanford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenstein, T. N. (1996). Husbands’ participation in domestic labor: Interactive effects of wives’ and husbands gender ideologies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 585–595.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hochschild, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Viking.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hood, J. (1983). Becoming a two-job family. New York: Preager.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingraham, C. (1999). White weddings: Romancing heterosexuality in popular culture. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knudson-Martin, C., & Mahoney, A. R. (1998). Language and processes in the construction of equality in new marriages. Family Relations, 47, 81–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamphere, L., Zavella, P., & Gonzales, F. (1993). Sunbelt working mothers: Reconciling family and factory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lennon, M. C., & Rosenfeld, S. (1994). Relative fairness and the division of housework: The importance of opinions. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 506–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leonard, M. (1992). The female world of cards and holidays: Women, families and the work of kinship. In B. Thorne & M. Yalom (Eds.), Rethinking the family: Some feminist questions (pp. 246–261). Boston: Northeastern University press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linton, R. (1942). Age and sex categories. American Sociological Review, 7, 509–603.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lofland, L. (1975). The ‘thereness’ of women. In M. Millman & R. Kanter (Eds.), Another voice (pp. 44–70). New York: Double Day.

    Google Scholar 

  • Major, B. (1993). Gender, entitlement and the distribution of family labor. Journal of Social Science, 49, 141–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merderer, H. J. (1993). Division of labor in two-earner homes: Task accomplishment versus household management as critical variables in perceptions about family work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 133–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perry-Jenkins, M., & Folk, K. (1994). Class, couples and conflict: Effects of the division of labor on assessments of marriage in dual-earner families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56, 156–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Press, J. E., & Townsley, E. (1998). Wives and husbands’ houswork reporting. Gender and Society, 12, 188–218.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pyke, K., & Coltrane, S. (1996). Entitlement, obligation, and gratitude in family work. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 60–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenthal, C. J. (1985). Kinkeeping in the familial division of labor. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47, 965–974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, L. (1994). Gender, labor allocations and the psychology of entitlement within the home. Social Forces, 73, 533–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, L., & Kane, E. W. (1996). Women’s and men’s constructions of perceptions of housework fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 358–387.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shelton, B. A., & John, D. (1996). The division of household labor. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 299–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sniezek, T. (2002). Getting married: An interactional analysis of weddings and transitions into marriage. Unpublished Dissertation. University of California at Los Angeles.

  • South, S., & Spitze, G. (1994). Housework in marital and nonmarital households. American Sociological Review, 59, 327–347.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, L. (1991). Family work: Women’s sense of fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, L., & Walker, A. J. (1989). Gender in families: Women and men in marriage, work and parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 845–871.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westlake-Chester, T. (1995). The processes and problematics of coordinating events: Planning the wedding reception, Qualitative and Ethnographic Research Conference. McMaster University, Hamilton Ontario.

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

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sniezek, T. Is It Our Day or the Bride’s Day? The Division of Wedding Labor and Its Meaning for Couples. Qual Sociol 28, 215–234 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-005-6368-7

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-005-6368-7

Keywords

Navigation