The problem stated: Ambitions and work pressures, their origins and consequences in Capitalist and Socialist Societies

Abstract

Strains within the family, tensions and problems between husbands and wives as well as between parents and children are a recurrent theme in private conversations, journals of opinion and the lecture circuit. There is a sense that the roles of men and women are undergoing a profound change and that life in the family is becoming increasingly difficult. Yet our understanding of these issues is very limited. Many realize that the individualistic formula of common wisdom, ‘it all depends on the people involved’, is not sufficient. However, public debates which go beyond such simplistic commentary often focus narrowly on the family as it is presently structured. The question then becomes: what precisely is wrong with the contemporary family? The more conservative answers urge a return to and a revitalization of the inherited forms of marriage and family life. Thus, the ‘Total Woman’ (Morgan, 1976) is to recreate a loving family and a romantic marriage by submitting herself to the needs of her husband, by organizing her work at home so that it does not overwhelm her and by trying to introduce variety and surprise into her personal and erotic style in order to keep her husband’s interest when he returns from work.