Blue-collar marriage

Abstract

Blue-Collar Marriage. M. Komarovsky. New York: Random House. 1964. Mina Komarovsky's Blue-Collar Marriage, first published in 1964, was reissued in 1987 by Yale University Press and is still available. It is one of the 40 best-selling books written by sociologists. It is similar to other sociological bestsellers in its jargon-free writing style, appeal to disciplines other than sociology, attention to the issue of poverty, focus on family and other primary groups, and use of qualitative methods (Gans, 1997). Citations in the Social Science Citation Index since 1990 reflect the book's continuing influence on a range of topics: intimacy, emotional expressiveness, self-disclosure, marital conflict, marital power, division of labor, gender and social-class differences, relations with inlaws, social networks and friendship patterns, fatherhood, and mental health. These citations are from a wide range of journals in disciplines such as sociology, psychology, family science, gender studies, human development, gerontology, family therapy, social services, health, psychiatry, anthropology, ethnography, law, economics, and history. Komarovsky wrote Blue-Collar Marriage to fill a gap in the literature on family life that had focused previously on White, Protestant, nativeborn, college-educated couples or families with multiple problems living in poverty. Through long and repeated focused interviews and the presentation of case studies, she provided a comprehensive and detailed analysis of 58 stable workingclass families. The respondents were White, native-born Protestants of not more than 40 years old who had at least one child. They were bluecollar workers whose education did not exceed high school. Komarovsky was one of the first sociologists to interview both husbands and wives using a combination of sociological and psychological tools. This interdisciplinary perspective was extended further through her collaboration on the study with the anthropologist, Jane Philips. The result is a detailed portrait of working-class marital relationships and a vivid description of the flavor of working-class life. The framework for Komarovsky's analysis includes two major components. First, she focuses on how the disjuncture between values and the conditions suitable for acting on these values affects marital relations. According to Komarovsky: Serious marital problems exist despite a strong consensus on values and on gender role definitions; indeed, precisely because of this consensus. Social changes made their values dysfunctional for marital adjustment. A subsidiary theoretical thesis is that these working-class families, exposed as they were to certain societal changes, at the same time were deprived of some adaptive strategies available to higher social strata. (2nd edition, p. 349, italics in original) Further, she states that Transition to new roles is hindered by circumstances such as the poverty of some young couples, the poor occupational adjustment of the young unskilled workers, and the need to reside in the parental home after (p. 47). Komarovsky provides several instances in which this occurs. For example, the combination of a lack of expectations for friendship in marriage and the unavailability of relatives and friends associated with contemporary patterns of geographic mobility created social isolation for some working-class families. The theoretical grounding for this analysis is based on Merton's analysis of the disjuncture between aspirations and opportunities and Ogburn's work on cultural lag. It provides a contrast to Parsons' position on the stability and functionality of family roles. The second component of Komarovsky's approach is her emphasis on comparative analysis. She argues that generalizations formulated on studies of middle-class families need to be tested in samples with different characteristics. In general, Blue-Collar Marriage describes a workingclass culture that centers around clearly defined gender roles, relatively low interpersonal communication and companionship, a restricted social life, and relatively strong ties with parents and siblings. …