Unmarried Cohabitation and Family Policy in Norway

Abstract

Family sociology reacted slowly and reluctantly to the behavioural and structural changes in family life that took place in many industrialized countries from the late 1960s/early 1970s ( Cheal, 1991; Doherty et a l., 1993; Eriksen and Wetlesen, 1996) . The 1950s has been described in Norway as the era of ‘the housewife family’ par excellen ce, using a Parsonian understanding ( Frones and Hompland, 1994; Gronseth, 1972) . This is well documented by solid long-term census data: marriages took place in church1 and it was common to be formally engaged to be married, divorce rates were low and labour market participation for married women, especially with children, was low ( Noack, 1994) . Still, there has been a long-term tradition of unmarried cohabitation or consensual unions in Norway, particularly in certain parts of the country, and mostly in the lower classes ( Brunborg, 1979; Eliot and Hillman, 1960; Sundt; 1855/1989) . The radical protesters against bourgeois marriage have been few in number, but their views were well aired ( Hoel, 1927) . Also, Norwegian family sociology pointed to the inadequacy of the Parsonian understanding of the family ( Gronseth, 1958, 1973) . In a historical perspective ( Goody, 1983; Frones and Hompland, 1994) the 1950s represent a peak in the state/church control of marriage, meaning a high degree of conformity in family life with the state/church as the sole agent empowered to acknowledge marriage. In fact, it was illegal in Norway for a man and a woman to live together without being formally married, i.e. without the recognition of the state/church. In 1954 the labour government withdrew a proposal to the parliament to abolish this particular legislation ( the so-called ‘concubinage paragraph’) . It was Ž nally abolished in 1972, somewhat overdue, to judge from the emerging marriage/cohabitation pattern. Family policy of the 1950s and 1960s was tailored to the nuclear family ideal: child allowance ( paid to the mother) , tax rules favouring one-breadwinner families, child day-care centres were almost non-existent and school started at the age of seven. But the welfare state was under construction and gradually relieving the family of some of the responsibilities for those outside the labour market ( the old, the disabled, unemployed, university students but not married women) . Included was support arrangements for unwed mothers. With regard to prevention and sexual education, Norway was quite conservative in the Scandinavian context ( Henriksen and Holter, 1978) . In tern a tion al Rev iew of Sociology—Rev u e In tern a tion ale de Sociologie, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2001

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