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3 1293 0091

This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
Marital Satisfaction and Egalitarian
Attitudes of Conservative Congregational
Ministers with Employed and Non-Employed

Wives. ~ ~ 6
presented by

Betty Jean Longhurst
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

d in F

: fiajor professor

MS U i: an Aflirrmtivc Action/Equal Omartum'ty Institution

 

Date April 2, 1993

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PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date duo.

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MSU Is An Attirmativo Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

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MARITAL SATISFACTION AND EGALITARIAN ATTITUDES OF
CONSERVATIVE CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS WITH EMPLOYED
AND NON-EMPLOYED WIVES

BY

Betty Jean Longhurst

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Family and Child Ecology

1993

ABSTRACT
MARITAL SATISFACTION AND EGALITARIAN ATTITUDES OF

CONSERVATIVE CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS WITH EMPLOYED
AND NON-EMPLOYED WIVES

BY

Betty Jean Longhurst

Little research has been done among ministerial couples
in the area of marital satisfaction. Taylor and Hartley
(1975) saw that these couples seemed to fit into the
traditional “two person career” in which the wives were
unemployed but required to assist in the husband's work.
Hartley (1978) observed the marital satisfaction of clergy
wives but divided the wives into three roles: the traditional
wife-mother role, the assistant pastor role, or the
individualistic role. The present study examines the marital
satisfaction and attitudes toward women’s roles of
Conservative Congregational ministers.

Questionnaires were completed by the ministers on
marital adjustment, attitudes toward women's roles, and a
demographic informational sheet. T-tests were run to
determine relationships between marital adjustment or
attitudes toward women's roles and different variables.

Findings indicated that marital satisfaction was not
affected by the wife's employment, but having children in the
home did affect negatively the marital satisfaction of the
clergy. In addition, the attitudes of the clergy toward
women's roles were strongly connected with the wives'

employment status. The clergy who had employed wives scored

higher on the Attitudes toward Women Scale. There was also a
strong correlation between clergy's attitudes toward women’s
roles and their support or non-support for the ordination of
women. The higher the clergy scored on the Attitudes toward
Women Scale, the more likely they were to endorse women's
ordination.

In the future, more research must be done to continue to
assess how the clergy marriage is doing. The clergy wife
must be surveyed with the clergy to investigate marital

satisfaction.

Copyright by
Betty Jean Longhurst
1993

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to recognize the following people who have
helped me greatly in completing this thesis. I would like to
express my appreciation to Dr. Anne Soderman for her
excellent guidance as my chairperson. Her encouragement,
availability, and insightful comments were invaluable. I
have profited a great deal from her example of a
knowledgeable researcher. I would also like to thank my
husband, Jim, who has patiently been by my side and believed
that I was able to do this task. Lastly, I would like to
thank Mrs. Beverly Baker, a retired school principal, whose
model influenced me to strive for my dreams and whose

assistance enabled me to pursue them.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
LIST OF TABLES ........................................ vii
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................... viii
Chapter I: INTRODUCTION .............................. 1
Need For The Study ........................ 6
Statement Of Problem ...................... 7
Limitations Of The Study .................. 7
Assumptions ............................... 7
Conceptual Definition Of Terms ............ 8
Operational Definition Of Terms ........... 8
Ecological Framework ...................... 9
Theoretical Framework .................... 12
Summary .................................. 15
Chapter II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................. 16
.Introduction ............................. 16
Marital Satisfaction ..................... 16
Wife's Employment ........................ 28
Religion and Gender Role Orientation ..... 39
Trends In Egalitarian Attitudes and
Behavior of Women ........................ 45

iv

Chapter III:

Chapter IV:

Chapter V:

Appendix:

METHODOLOGY .............................. 55

Introduction ............................. 55
Subjects ................................. 55
Description of the Sample ................ 55
Research Design .......................... 58
Research Questions ....................... 58
Null Hypotheses And Alternatives ......... 59
Measures ................................. 62
Data Collection Procedure ................ 65
Data Analysis ............................ 66
Summary .................................. 66
FINDINGS ................................. 68
Range of Instruments ..................... 68
Marital Satisfaction of Clergy ........... 69

Clergy’s Attitudes Towards Women’s Roles. 75

Clergy's Agreement or Disagreement with

the Ordination of Women .................. 78
Summary of Null and Hypothesis ........... 82
Additional Findings ...................... 87
CONCLUSIONS .............................. 91
Clergy's Dyadic Adjustment Scale ......... 91

Clergy’s Attitudes Toward Women's Roles.. 93

Clergy’s Support or Non-Support of
Ordination of Women ...................... 95

UCRIHS Letter of Approval ................ 97

Survey Cover Letter ...................... 98

Marital Adjustment Survey of Clergy ...... 99
Demographic Data ........................ 100
Dyadic Adjustment Scale ................. 103
Attitude Toward Women Survey of Clergy

Instrument .............................. 106
Bibliography ............................ 108

vi

5—]

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14

Table
Table
Table
Table

Table

Table

Table

Table
Table
Table

Table

10.

11.

LIST OF TABLES

Page
Description of Sample. ................... 57
Total Dyadic Adjustment Scale of
Clergy (DAS) and Independent
Variables. ............................... 70
Dyadic Adjustment Scale and
Specific Items. .......................... 74
Clergy's Attitudes Toward Women
Scale and Independent Variables. ......... 76
Clergy’s Agreement or
Disagreement of Women’s
Ordination Among Various
Variables ................................ 8O
Attitudes toward Women Scale by
Ordination of Women. ..................... 81
Ordination of Women Question. ............ 81
Null Hypotheses and
Alternatives. ............................ 83
Total Dyadic Adjustment of Clergy
by Wife’s Income. ........................ 87
Range of Total Dyadic Scores by
Wife's Income. ........................... 89
Question 31 — Rating of Marital
Happiness by Wife's Income. .............. 90

vii

Figure

Figure

Figure

Figure

Figure

Figure

LIST OF FIGURES

Bronfenbrenner's Model Of The Ecology
Of Human Development ............................. 13

A Theory of Marital Quality and
Marital Stability ................................ 11

Total Dyadic Adjustment, Scale of Clergy and
Children or No Child at Home. .................... 72

Attitudes Toward Women, Scale of Clergy of
Employed and Non-Employed Wives. ................. 77

Clergy's Agreement or Disagreement of Women’s
Ordination and Attitudes Toward Women's Scale....79

Total Dyadic Adjustment, Scale of Clergy and Wife’s
Income ........................................... 88

viii

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Various types of occupations in America have required
the wife to be heavily involved in her husband's work but on
an unpaid basis. Papanek (1973) was one the earliest
researchers to introduce the concept of the "two person
career" in relationship to those occupations that require the
active participation of the wife in the husband's career.
This traditional pattern always involved a three way
relationship between the institution and the couple, with the
husband being formally employed and the wife making informal
contributions as required. Usually, the wife was inducted
into her husband's work not because of her own choice, or the
institution's, but because she was married to the employee.
For the wife, the "two person career" offered vicarious
achievement in the working world; her rewards and fulfillment
came through her husband's success in his career.

Papanek's (1973) model of what constituted the "two
person career" had certain characteristics which made it
unique in the working world. It was mainly restricted to
certain middle class male-dominated occupations and was
generally found within large, complex institutions that
recruited highly trained men. The wife's contributions to her
husband's career often included intellectual and public tasks

which were necessary for his success. Moreover, her

 

A.-

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V.

functions were usually unacknowledged and unremunerated. She
found herself, as Papanek stated it, 'gainfully unemployed.’

Taylor and Hartley (1975) took Papanek's idea of the
"two person career" and applied it to Protestant ministry.
They have been among the few researchers who have looked at
ministerial couples and their marital relationships. They
saw the same characteristics of the two-person career fitting
in this type of occupation. The clergy profession was middle
class, male—dominated, and males were hired by a complex
organization, the church (Taylor & Hartley, 1975). Moreover,
churches have often encouraged the wife's unpaid assistance
with his job because ministry has often been viewed as a
calling rather than a profession; thus, the usual criteria of
occupational success found in financial rewards has not
applied. Taylor and Hartley (1975) stated:

"The gainful unemployment of the minister's wife is

religiously sanctioned, and her contributions to the

two-person career are viewed as a natural outgrowth of

her religious commitment." (p.358).

Taylor and Hartley (1975) surveyed 448 clergy wives to
find out if they were satisfied with this type of traditional
arrangement. They were asked if they agreed that their
fulfillment came through their husband and his work. The
overwhelming majority, 85 percent of the wives, did accept
this principle. However, wives' education apparently
competed against this idea of the two-person career. Except
for one category, (the women who had 1 to 3 years of

college), there was a steady decline in the proportion who

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strongly accepted the “two-person career” as the level of
education increased. Moreover, they also found a
relationship between education and labor force participation.
Respondents with four or more years of college were almost as
likely as other U.S. wives to be in the labor force. Even
though less than half of the employed respondents worked full
time, they were three times as likely to be employed at least
30 hours a week if they had finished college than if they had
completed only high school. It was clear that the higher the
level of formal education, the more likely the respondents
were to be employed and to be employed full time.

Finch (1980) also observed wives among four different
denominations in Canada: Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists,
and Congregationalists. She asked similar questions: "Did
congregations still expect the clergy wife to be an unpaid
assistant? Did the stereotyped picture still hold for the
clergy wife?" She stated, "Behind these questions lie all
sorts of assumptions about the nature of the clergyman's
work, about the identification of a wife with her husband's
work, and about priorities in marriage" (Finch, 1980, p.
851). She did discover that the picture of the contemporary
clergy wife was one in which the women were substantially
involved in their husband's work, mostly in traditional ways.
Virtually all of the wives belonged to women's groups in the
church and were involved in clerical and maintenance

activities in the church. Finch (1980) concluded:

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Taken in all, the picture of the contemporary
clergyman's wife is one in which the reality matches the
stereotype quite closely; she is dedicated to her
husband's work, and active in it, supporting him
directly where appropriate, and often undertaking such
activities as are traditionally associated with her,
notably in the woman's side of church life. (p. 855)

This picture of the traditional clergy wife also applied
in the area of employment. Finch (1980) found that only 5
percent were working full-time, and very few were pursuing a
career. Their common orientation toward employment was that
it must be secondary to their husband's work and that it must
not detract them from domestic responsibilities.

The clergy wife is caught in the dilemma of what
constitutes her role. Does she choose a career or conform to
the traditional expectations? How she answers this is not
easy because she may firmly believe that she could hurt her
husband's work if she makes a wrong choice. The concept of
situational adjustment fits this struggle very well. Becker
(1970) states:

The person as he moves in and out of a variety of social

situations, learns the requirements of continuing in

each situation, and of success of it. If he has a

strong desire to continue in the situation, the ability

to assess accurately what is required, and can deliver
the required performance, the individual turns himself

into the kind of person the situation demands. (p. 44)

Hartley (1978) continued to look at this role dilemma by
studying the marital satisfaction of clergy wives. Her
sample consisted of 448 clergy wives in six mainline

denominations that were representative of traditional and

liberal theologies. The following churches were represented:

In

c“~

Disciples of Christ Christian Church, American Baptist,
Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal Church, United
Methodist, and United Presbyterian Church. Each wife was
classified according to one of three subjective role
orientations based on her response (i.e. the traditional
wife-mother role, the associate pastor role, or the
individualistic or self-development role). The wives most
strongly identifying with the associate pastor role were the
least likely to report enthusiasm in six or more of the nine
aspects of the marital relationship. These nine aspects were
the following: time spent alone together, mutual intellectual
interests, decision making, ability to communicate, shared
activities, sexual satisfaction, sharing of household tasks,
sharing parental responsibilities, and love and affection.
Respondents who identified as an individualist (i.e. striving
for personal fulfillment) were the most likely to be
consistently enthusiastic about the relationship with their
husbands.

The implications of the previous research of clergy
wives brings to the forefront a question about whether or not
the “two-person career” or associate pastor role for the wife
is necessary. If the clergy wife pursues a job in the work
world, her previous roles in the past may be changing. The
marital satisfaction of the clergy may be affected if the
clergy wife has a greater variety in acting out the role of

the minister's wife.

 

AV

This individualist role or pursuing career interests
outside the home can be demonstrated by the increasing labor
force participation of women in the past decades. In 1950,
about one-third of the women 16 to 64 years old were in the
labor force; in 1985, 64 percent were in the labor force. In
addition, among the women with children under 18, 62 percent
or 20 million were in the labor force in 1985 while in 1970,
just 4 out of 10 mothers or 12 million were in the labor
force. By 1995, there is a projected rate of 60 percent or
61.4 million women who will be in the work force. (U.S.
Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1986) With such
a dramatic rise of women in the labor force, clergy wives may
also be likely to be following closely behind.

Since the clergy wife's roles are anticipated to change,
what effect will this have on the marital adjustment of the
clergy? Will the clergy couple be able to adjust to these
changes? What is the clergy husband's attitude toward roles
for women today if he see his wife endorsing individualistic

roles? These are issues that clergy couples may be facing.

W

The importance of this study is to obtain a clearer
picture of marital adjustment within the clergy since very
little research has been done with this type of marriage.

Since the clergy wife has often been placed in traditional

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stereotypical roles, it will be important to observe how

these marriages are adjusting relative to wives' employment.

W

The purpose of this study is look at out the marital
adjustment of male clergy of employed and non-employed wives

and their attitudes toward women's roles.

I' 'I I' :E I] SI 1

The limitations of this research are that only one
denomination, the Conservative Congregational Christian
Conference, was surveyed, and all the clergy were male. The
wives of the clergy were not included in the survey because
the annual meeting at which the questionnaires were
distributed was mainly composed of male clergy. The
ministers of the conference are basically evangelical and
conservative in theology which prevents a liberal vs.
traditional continuum in doctrine. Furthermore, only

ordained ministers approved by the conference were surveyed.

Assumptions

The main assumption of this study is that the clergy
wife's role is changing from the past. Even though little

research has been done among ministerial couples, it is

Ha

At1

assumed that these women are joining the labor force in
greater numbers. In addition, there will be a difference of
opinion among the clergy regarding women's roles. For
example, the conference has approved the ordination of women,
but the policy was met with opposition two years ago, and
very few women have been ordained ministers in the

conference.

2 I 1 E E' 'l' :E I

Marital adjustment:
a process of movement along a continuum which can be
evaluated at any point in time on a dimension from well
adjusted to maladjusted. (Spanier, 1976)

Attitudes toward women's roles:
attitudes or opinions one holds ranging from
conservative to liberal about rights, roles, and
privileges women ought to have in society. (Spence &
Helmreich, 1978)

Employment of women :
participation in the labor force.

. . . . 0

Marital adjustment:

the 32 item scale of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS)
with four areas measured: 1- marital satisfaction (10
items) 2- consensus, i.e. the extent of agreement on
such issues as finances, goals, career decisions, etc.
(13 items) 3- cohesion, i.e. the extent and quality of
shared leisure time and other activities (5 items) and
4- affectional expression (4 items).

Attitudes toward.‘women's roles:
a 15 item Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) describing
the rights, roles, and privileges women should have.

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Wife's employment:
determined by respondent's yes or no answer to the
question whether or not his wife is employed.

W

The minister's family can be viewed with an ecological
perspective. This means that the individual, marriage, and
the family must be observed by their interactions with their
environment. Bronfenbrenner (1979) use the word ecology to
refer to the interaction of the person with his or her social
and physical setting. Three significant features
characterize the ecological development of a person: 1) the
developing person is viewed as a growing, active individual;
2) the interaction between the person and the environment is
viewed as a two-directional or reciprocal relationship, and
the ecological environment was not limited to a single,
immediate setting. Instead, it is much broader and includes
interactions between immediate settings (as home, school,
workplace) and larger settings (as the culture) (Schiamberg,
1988).

Bronfenbrenner (1979) has developed four structural
levels to the ecological environment: the microsystem, the
mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem. The
microsystem involves the interaction between a person in an
immediate setting. The social settings important to the
clergy family here could be the children and their school,

the wife and her workplace, and the church and the minister.

10

The mesosystem refers to the relationships among the various
settings. For example, the relationship of the clergy wife's
employment and her role with the church, or the relationship
of the church to the minister's family. The exosystem
includes the settings in which a family member does not
directly participate but which affects the individual. Such
formal and informal institutions as the neighborhood,
community organizations, transportation networks, and
governmental structures are included here. The clergy wife
who is employed would be involved in an exosystem for the
minister, the church, and her children. They do not directly
participate in her work world, but they are all affected by
it. The macrosystem is the overarching institutional
patterns of a culture (i.e. the economic, legal, social, and
political systems). This level consists of the values,
beliefs, or ideologies that influence the ways in which
institutions are organized. For example, the values and
beliefs of the clergy's denomination have an impact on the
clergy, the wife, the children, and the church. (See Figure

1)

11

MACROSYS'I‘EM
Attitudes and Ideologies of the Culture

MICROSYSTEM

Neighborhood
Play Area

 

Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s model of the ecology of human
development. From Garbarino, 1982, p. 648.

12

TheoreticaLEramemrk

The proposed study fits well into the theoretical model
established by Lewis and Spanier (1979). Their model
contains variables necessary for marital quality and
stability. Nine factors which enhance the marital quality of
the couple are included. Four of these represent the social
and economic aspects of the marriage, and the remaining five
deal with the interpersonal dynamics of the couple. The two
areas of satisfaction with wife’s working and role fit will
be related to the study since marital satisfaction of clergy
of employed and non-employed wives and their attitudes toward
women’s roles will be investigated. The quality of the
relationship is viewed as a subjective evaluation of how well
the marriage is doing or functioning. A couple may range
from low to high adjustment at different points in the

marriage. (See Figure 2.)

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A Theory of Marital Quality and Marital Stability

Figure 2.

14

Marital quality in the model is divided into two main
parts: the social and economic and interpersonal factors.

The areas within the social and economic factors are
socioeconomic adequacy, satisfaction with the wife's
employment, optimal household composition, and community
embeddedness. The first area is related to the husband's
occupation and family income. If the economic resources are
stable and adequate, it is believed that the marriage will be
happy. The second area, satisfaction with the wife's
employment, is more difficult to measure. If there are heavy
role overloads because both partners work, the quality could
diminish. But, the financial help and the wife's personal
fulfillment may increase marital happiness. Household
composition is determined by the number of children and
adults in the home and the amount of spacing between each
child. If the number is perceived as desirable, marital
satisfaction increases. Community embeddedness is the
couple's network of friends and their community involvement.
Both of these are seen as important for the marriage.

The second part of the model covers the interpersonal
factors. The five areas are: positive regard for the
spouse, emotional gratification, effectiveness of
communication, role—fit, and amount of interaction. Positive
regard for the spouse is connected to sexual attraction,
communication skills, value agreement, and positive opinions
about each other. Emotional gratification covers the amount

of affection for each other, respect, encouragement for each

on:

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15

one's potential, just distribution of power, sexual
satisfaction, and love. Communication deals with skills,
amount of self-disclosure, accuracy of nonverbal
communication, frequency of successful communication,
understanding, and empathy. Role-fit is related to the
ability of the partner to fit the expectations of the other.
Amount of interaction deals with shared activities together
as well as effective problem-solving between the couple.
The model gives a clear picture of what is thought to
constitute a stable and happy marriage. Lewis & Spanier
(1979) believe that all of the areas are vital for marital
quality and stability. Their main premise is that if the
quality of the marriage is high, the stability will be high,

too.

Summary

The purpose of the study is to investigate the marital
adjustment of clergy who have employed or non-employed wives.
His attitudes toward women's roles will also be assessed in

relationship to the wife's employment status.

\‘V

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction

Four areas will be investigated to better understand
clergy marriages. These are marital satisfaction, wife's
employment, religious influence on gender role attitudes, and
trends of egalitarian attitudes toward women. With the
dramatic increase of women in the labor market over the
years, these four aspects will be important to know in

relationship to clergy marriages.

Marital—Satisfaction

Marital satisfaction has been a common variable used in
the research of couples; yet, it is difficult to measure.
One approach on measurement has been to link marital
satisfaction to marital stability. If the marriage was
dissolved only by the natural death of one spouse and not by
separation or divorce, it was considered a satisfying and
stable marriage. An unstable marriage then, was one which
was willfully terminated by one or both spouses. Although
there is evidence in the early literature to suggest that
marital satisfaction is strongly correlated with marital

stability (Spanier 1976), social scientists are well aware

16

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17

that many poorly adjusted marriages may remain intact while
many relatively good marriages may end in divorce.

Besides linking marital satisfaction with marital
stability, another approach in measurement has been to
connect it with the quality of the relationship. Such terms

as happiness, marital adjustment; and marital success have

 

been used frequently to delineate the subjective state of the
marital relationship, (Hicks & Platt, 1970). There are

problems in trying to measure a marriage according to its

 

happiness or success because these terms have a range of
meanings, making it difficult to pinpoint a precise
definition. Moreover, husbands and wives do not always agree
about the level of happiness, and what makes one person happy
may not be the same for the other. It is also difficult to
find the source of one's happiness whether it is the result
of the marriage or factors outside the marriage.

Furthermore, the social desirability bias can not be
overlooked in such attempts to measure happiness. What this
means is that respondents generally tend to rate their
marriages higher than what it is in actuality.

Research related to the qualitative aspects of marital
satisfaction has, since the 1960's, become less general and
more focused on specific dimensions of marital interaction.
For example, communication within the marriage has been the
area of marital interaction most extensively studied (Synder
1979). Moreover, such factors of possible marital contention

as finances, the sexual relationship, concern over the

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18

children, family life cycle, in-laws, amount of leisure time
together, role expectations, wife's employment, religion,
family background, and income have been studied to more
narrowly define marital satisfaction.

Levinger (1965) added to our early knowledge of marital
satisfaction by formulating a theory of marital cohesiveness.
His theory was based on the premise that the strength of the
marital bond was a direct function of the attractions within
and the barriers around the marriage. He believed that all
relationships had sources of barrier strength or attraction.
If the sources of attraction were strong, the marriage would
be happy. Such sources of attraction in a marriage could be
companionship, sexual enjoyment, husband's income and
occupation, similarity in age, and religion. The sources of
barrier strength were related to forces that kept the
marriage intact. Such factors as obligation to the marital
bond and to the children, religious and moral prescriptions,
and external pressures as legal and economic restraints were
seen as these barriers to prevent the marriage from
dissolving. Alternate attractions were forces that could
pull the marriage apart if they were desired. These could be
affection from other partners or the economic independence of
the working wife.

Orden and Bradburn (1968) enlarged upon this idea of
marital cohesiveness by devising a scale that specifically
measured happiness in two dimensions, satisfactions and

tensions. They saw that satisfaction was positively related

 

19

to happiness, whereas tensions were in the opposite
direction. They thought that happiness in the marriage would
be a balance between these two. Orden and Bradburn (1968)

stated:

Knowing that the indexes are related to marriage
happiness in opposite directions, enables us to predict
that a person who is high in satisfactions and low in
tensions will rate himself very happy in marriage, while
a person who is low on satisfactions and high in
tensions will not be too happy. The difference between
the scores on the tensions and the total satisfaction
indexes would probably be a good indicator of a person's
happiness in marriage. (p. 735) ”“

 

Synder (1979) continued to assess marital satisfaction
by devising a tool called the Martial Satisfaction Inventory.
This was based on specific dimensions of marital interaction
between couples in and not in therapy. Areas covered in this
tool were global distress, conventionalization, affective
communication, problem-solving communication, sexual
dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction with children, disagreement
about finances, role—orientation, time together, and family
history of distress. He found that the measures of a
couples' affective and problem-solving communication were the
best single predictors of overall marital satisfaction.

These scales were also closely followed in predictiveness by
spouses' common interests and the amount and quality of
leisure time together. In a subsequent study using a revised
version of the same tool with 111 couples from the general
population and 30 couples in therapy, Synder (1979) found

similar results. The affective and problem-solving

20

communication were the best indicators of global marital
satisfaction with amount and quality of leisure time
following closely behind. He states, "Any one of the three
measures, taken individually, accounts for more than half of
the total variance in a couples satisfaction with their
marital relationship" (p. 818).

Even though better measurement in marital satisfaction
has been formulated, there are still inconsistencies in some
of the findings of the research. Some of the reasons for
this has been the difficulty in comparing results from such
subjective terms as happiness, success, adjustment, and
satisfaction. In addition, any cross-sectional populations
used in the research make it impossible to generalize the
findings to the general population. Moreover, any research
based on the family life cycle in marriages must take into
account the gradual elimination from the sample of divorced
couples. This limitation has the effect of artificially
increasing the marital adjustment scores for each subsequent
cohort (Spanier, Lewis, and Cole, 1975). Lastly, any
generational differences concerning marriage and the
possibility of divorce must be considered as marriage groups
are compared.

One of the most extensive areas that has received
attention over the years in relationship to marital
satisfaction has been that of the family life cycle. Again
within this topic, findings vary. Most researchers have

agreed that there is initially a decrease in marital

21

satisfaction during the early years of marriage and
particularly following the birth of the first child. In the
middle and the latter stages of the cycle, the evidence is
less clear. Burr (1970) studied 147 intact couples and found
that there was no systematic decline in satisfaction over the
life cycle. His six areas of finances, social activities,
household tasks, companionship, sexual interaction, and
relationships with children showed no major trends of
decreasing scores. Moreover, several of these actually
tended to rise in satisfaction. The most abrupt overall
change in satisfaction for husbands and wives occurred, from
the pre-school to the school stage when satisfaction
decreased for both husbands and wives. Rollins and Feldman
(1970) studied 799 middle-class couples who were residents of
Syracuse, New York. These couples represented a wide range
of life cycle stages. They discovered that general marital
satisfaction for husbands and wives occurred in a curvilinear
pattern during the family life cycle. For the wives, there
was a steady decline from the birth of a child to the school
age stage; then a leveling off with a rapid increase from the
empty nest to the retired stage of the family life cycle.

For the husbands, there was a slight decline from the birth
of a child to the school age stage, a slight increase to the
empty nest stage, and then a rapid increase for the retired
stage. Rollins & Feldman (1970) did find that husbands and
wives did experience the family life stages in different

ways. They concluded:

 

22

These data suggest that experiences of childbearing and
childrearing have a rather profound and negative effect
on marital satisfaction for wives. . . . . The most
devastating period of marriage for males appears to be
when they are anticipating retirement. Marital
satisfaction might be influenced more by occupational
experiences for husbands than the event and
developmental level of children in their families.
These data suggest that marriage has very different
meanings for husbands than for wives. (p. 27)

Spanier, Lewis, and Cole (1975) further investigated
this issue, but they used three samples from Iowa, Ohio, and
Georgia. They concluded that curvilinearity in marital
satisfaction over the marital stages was only partially
supported. In other words, even though a decrease in marital
adjustment was common following the birth of children and
continuing through the childhood years, there was not enough
evidence to suggest a leveling off followed by an increase in
adjustment into the later years. In addition, Rhyne (1981)
surveyed 2,190 married Canadians and found again overall
marital quality decreased during the child-rearing stages.
Those couples whose children had left home were found to have
the highest scores in marital quality. Yet, he discovered
that at the later stages, having grown children who had
stayed home produced the lowest levels of satisfaction.
Rhyne (1981) declared:

While presence of children has quite marked effects on

female marital satisfaction, another stressful time

would seem to be the period in which there is a grown
child or children, but all children are still at home.

The failure to launch children out of the nest at the

appropriate time appears to have serious effects.
(p.950)

 

23

Besides the family life cycle, gender role attitudes of
spouses have been another area related to marital
satisfaction. Bowen and Orthner (1983) studied the
congruency of gender role attitudes of husbands and wives and
assessed how these attitudes were related to the quality of
the couple's relationship. They wanted to find if spouses
with congruent gender role attitudes (i.e. both traditional
or both modern) had higher quality than those who did not.
They categorized partners according to their responses to
questions dealing with traditional or modern preferences.

The traditional role meant that the wife's primary
responsibility was the household and childcare tasks while
she subordinated her own interests for the sake of the
family. The modern role stressed equality between the sexes
with each spouse having the freedom to pursue a career, and
the household and childcare responsibilities were
interchangeable. They discovered that couples with a mixture
of a traditional husband and a modern wife were significantly
lower in marital adjustment than the homogenous couples
(i.e.. both traditional or modern). What was surprising was
that couples with a label of modern husband and traditional
wife did not differ significantly in marital adjustment from
the homogeneous couples. They attributed that the difficulty
of the modern wife and traditional husband could be the
result of the pressures from wives to change the role
expectations of their traditional husbands and a reluctance

on the part of the men to change. The fact that the modern

24

husband and traditional wife were as happy as the congruent
couples was explained by the compatibility of this
arrangement. For example, the nontraditional men allowed the
wives the freedom to pursue their own independent interests,
but the wives still held the interests of the family as
primary.

Li and Caldwell (1987) also looked at this same issue,
but they studied the direction and the magnitude of the
disagreement between gender roles and its effect to marital
quality. They recruited 103 couples from a midwestern
university, conservative churches, and religious groups. Li
and Caldwell (1987) found:

These findings indicate that the direction of

incongruence plays a very important role in determining

the impact of marital sex-role incongruence on marital
adjustment; namely, the greater the incongruence is in
the direction of the wife being more egalitarian
relative to her husband, the more negative is the
estimated impact on marital adjustment. Conversely, the
greater the incongruence is in the direction of the
husband being more egalitarian than his wife, the more
positive is the estimated impact on marital adjustment.

(p.105)

These conclusions were similar to Bowen and Orthner's
(1983) findings that marital adjustment was lower for
traditional husbands and modern wives. However, these
researchers found that if the husbands were more egalitarian
than the wives, the marital adjustment improved.

Why were the more egalitarian husbands better in marital

adjustment? Li and Caldwell (1987) attributed this to the

principle of accommodation. They believed that the

25

significant shift toward more equal power distribution among
men and women meant gains in power for women and sacrifices
in power for men. Whereas an egalitarian wife might be less
accommodating in order to achieve and maintain more equal
power distribution within the marriage, her traditional
husband might be less accommodating because he is interested
in retaining unequal power. Conversely, an egalitarian
husband might be more accommodating because he takes the
position of being willing to relinquish some of the power
traditionally associated with the role of husband.
Similarly, his traditional wife would probably be more
accommodating because she is less likely to want to alter the
existing power structure.

The division of household and childcare responsibilities
is another area that has been speculated to be related to
marital satisfaction. The few studies that have addressed
this issue have consistently found a positive relationship
between marital quality and satisfaction with this aspect of
family life (Pleck, 1985, White, 1983). Yogev and Brett
(1985) studied 239 couples drawn from employees of a large
midwestern high technological organization. They showed a.
significant relationship between marital satisfaction and
perception of the distribution of housework and childcare
among husbands and wives in dual-earner and single-earner
marriages. They discovered that two models, the exchange
model and the equity model, seemed to explain the

relationship between perceptions of family work and marital

~
Q
uni

26

satisfaction. In the exchange model, each spouse tried to
maximize rewards over the costs. If a spouse perceived that
the other spouse was doing more than his or her share of the
family work, and that he or she was doing less, then marital
satisfaction occurred. This pattern was found among the
dual-earner husbands and the single-earner wives. For the
dual-earner wives and the single-earner husbands, the equity
model was the best fit. In other words, if the share of the

family work was perceived as being fair for both spouses,

then marital satisfaction increased. They stated:

What is clear from the results is that dual-and single
earner couples are wrestling with the question of what
is a fair distribution of family work and that the
resolution of the distribution is related to marital
satisfaction. (Yogev and Brett, 1985, p. 615)

Suitor (1991) found that wives' satisfaction with the
division of labor followed a U-shaped curve across the family
life cycle, with lowest satisfaction correlated with the pre-
school and school-age children while the highest level of
satisfaction occurred in the pre-and post-parental years. In
contrast to the wives, there was little variation in
husbands' satisfaction with the division of labor across the
family life cycle. Suitor (1991) concluded:

With few exceptions, satisfaction with this aspect of

family life was associated with greater marital

happiness and with lower marital conflict and verbal

aggression across the family life cycle among both men
and women. (p. 226)

27

Leisure activity patterns has been another aspect that
has been investigated with marital satisfaction. Orthner
(1974) was one of the early researchers in this. He
suggested that three patterns of leisure interaction:
individual, joint, and parallel, were possible between
couples. Individual leisure activities meant no interaction
was necessary among the partners. Joint leisure activities
required a great deal of interaction between people, and
parallel leisure activities needed both to be together, but
little interaction was required. He found that joint leisure
patterns were positively related to marital satisfaction
while individual leisure was negatively related, and parallel
leisure activities were unrelated. Stinnett (1983) in his
assessment of strong families believed this factor of
spending time together was one of the primary characteristics
of these families. Holman and Jacquart (1988) also
discovered that for both husbands and wives, the greater the
individual leisure time, the less the marital satisfaction.
Even though they found no association between joint leisure
and husbands' marital satisfaction, it was related to the
wives' marital satisfaction. They did see though, a
relationship between high level joint leisure activities or
high levels of communication between the couple within the
activity and high marital satisfaction. Holman and Jacquart
(1988) declared:

Our results support Orthner's basic findings on the

negative relationship between proportion of leisure
individual activities, and marital satisfaction, and the

28

positive relationship between proportion of leisure at

high levels of joint activities and marital

satisfaction. ( p.73)

In conclusion, the road to understanding marital
satisfaction has taken many paths from the general subjective
observations about happiness to specific dimensions within
the marital relationship. Such important aspects as gender
role attitudes, family life stages, communication, leisure,
division of household labor, and childcare will continue to
be important variables to observe.

This topic of marital satisfaction will be interesting
to observe among clergy couples. Little research has been
focused for this type of couple. It will be important to see

how these couples are functioning in this area.

Want.

The issue of wife's employment has been a long debated
topic in regard to marital satisfaction. Many problems
within the marriage have been attributed to the rising labor
force participation of women. Such areas as role conflict
between home and work, the husband's loss of esteem, loss of
companionship, lack of time together, childcare, and
competition between incomes have been used to explain the
possible reasons for tension in the dual-worker family. Yet,
the overall consensus seems to be that the employment of
women may not necessarily damage the relationship if other

important factors are present in the marriage. Some of these

 

29

will be addressed later, but first the main theories
undergirding wife's employment as being detrimental or
helpful to the marriage will be presented.

Two main theoretical perspectives have been formulated
to predict how the wife's employment might affect the marital
quality. The earliest theory (Parsons, 1942) suggested that
if a wife's job was equal or higher in status than the
husband's, status competition would occur and cause harm in
the marriage. His premise was based on the idea that
families form single status units from the husband's income
in order to avoid competition with each other. To prevent
this situation, wives would either remain unemployed or
employed in low level occupations. Safilios-Roschild (1975)
also claimed that the gender identities of both spouses would
be threatened if the wife exceeded her husband in
occupational achievements. In other words, the husband's
economic dependence upon his wife would threaten his
masculinity, and her dominance in the work world would lessen
her femininity. Oppenheimer (1977), on the other hand,
maintained that the wife's employment caused status
enhancement possibilities. She postulated that a family
would seek the highest status possible as a unit, and she
found no evidence that women dropped out of the labor force
to avoid competition with their husbands.

Even though the relationship of wife's employment and
marital satisfaction is a complex issue, the early research

did find that the two were negatively connected. Axelson

 

 

011‘

be.

30

(1960) found poorer marital adjustment when the wife worked
outside the home full-time for both husband and wife. He
believed that this was due to the perceived threat of the
husband's dominant role in the home and the mother’s absence
from the children. Nye (1961) also discovered with mothers
of children in urban areas that the marriage was more likely
to be characterized by conflict if she worked. Orden and
Bradburn (1969) studied 781 husbands and 957 wives and found
that both partners in a marriage were lower in happiness when
the wife was working out of financial necessity rather than
by her own choice. They did discover that the part-time
working wife had a more favorable marital adjustment than the
wives who had to work or who were unemployed. Burke and Weir
(1976) furthermore, saw clear differences between the single
and dual-career families. The working woman appeared to have
more worries, yet these same women were in better physical
and emotional health and held more positive attitudes toward
life and marriage. In comparison, the husbands of the
working wives were in poorer health and were less content
with marriage, work, and life in general. Burke and Weir
(1976) stated:
The implications of these findings are that men whose
wives work are subject to greater stress than men whose
wives are not working, and they appear to be having more
difficulty coping effectively with this pattern of
family living. Thus, whatever benefits accrue to the
wife and the family from her participation in the work

force do not appear to mitigate whatever difficulties
the husband experiences with this arrangement. (p. 285)

.’

(D

31

In contrast to Burke and Weir (1976), Booth (1977) found
very little difference in stress between working wives and
housewives. Furthermore, husband's of employed wives enjoyed
happier marriages and were under less stress than men married
to housewives. Booth (1977) declared:

We may conclude that wife's employment has beneficial

effects on the husband. While there is no doubt that

wives, and probably husbands, go through a period of
adjustment that is stressful when the woman first joins
the labor force, our evidence suggests that it is short
lived. The added income and the greater personal
fulfillment the wife and probably her husband eventually
enjoy far outweigh the short-term disadvantages which

female employment may bring to the couple. (p. 649)

Continuing with this same issue of distress and wife’s
employment, Kessler and McRae Jr. (1982) found mixed results
for the husband and wife. Their data came from 2,440 U.S.
adults, aged 21 years and older, who were studied by the
Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. All of
the distress indicators showed employed wives as having lower
distress than homemakers. Yet, among the husbands of
employed wives, higher levels of distress were found. There
was some evidence, though, that a positive attitude toward
one's wife working reduced this emotional damage of the
husband. For example, men of employed wives who shared
childcare responsibilities were lower in distress than those
who did not. Apparently, gender-role orientations, rather
than work overloads, were implicated here. In addition,

Fendrich (1984) studied 533 married males of employed wives

in their levels of well-being, personal competence, and

c...

‘s

.0

I

32

health. Yet, his results showed little significance between
husband's general health factors and his wife’s work.

In contrast to some of the negative findings, other
research has found no significant relationship between wife's
employment and marital satisfaction. Wright (1978) compared
overall happiness of working women and housewives and saw no
differences between the two. His evidence pointed to the
fact that both work and housekeeping roles have costs and
benefits attached to them. Working women could enjoy an
outside income and some increase in independence. But, they
also might pay for these benefits in reduced free time and a
more complicated life. Furthermore, while the life of the
housewife might be somewhat easier and less hectic, their
work might be less satisfying than their employed
counterparts. Locksley (1980) investigated this same issue
on a representative national sample of marriages. She
focused on wives who were working solely for the money,
unemployed wives, and wives highly committed to their work.
Her findings provided no evidence for either side. Dual-
marriages did not differ much from the single- worker
marriages. Locksley (1980) stated:

Although these data are not longitudinal, the absence of

effects of wives' employment at a single time point on a

representative national sample of marriages, strongly

suggests that the controversy over wives' increasing
labor-force participation rates is based on some

unwarranted assumptions. (p. 345)

Likewise, Smith (1985), after collecting findings from

research spanning thirty years, concluded that wife's

 

33

employment appeared to have little or no effect on marital
adjustment.

There is no doubt that in the early research, wife's
employment was seen as having harmful consequences. The rise
of women in the labor force was such a phenomenon that how it
would affect the home and the marriage was uncertain. With
the passing of time, the negative findings have been replaced
with no effects and even positive outlooks of the wife's

employment. While attitudes do seem to be changing, some

' 1'

factors still need to be addressed in relation to their
impact on the marriage. Such areas as the family life cycle,
a woman's commitment to her job or career, the wife's income
if it is competitive or not to her husband's, and her
occupational status if it is higher than her husband's must
be examined to assess what effect they have on the
relationship.

The presence or absence of children in the home is an
issue that could make a difference in a woman's decision to
work. Orden and Bradburn (1969) saw a correlation between an
increase in the wife's employment as the children matured.
During the period of infancy and early childhood, her
employment was minimal. Yet, at each successive stage of
childrearing, women began to move into part-time and full—
time work. Spitze and Waite (1981) found that the wife's
opinion about her husband's attitude toward her work was
determined by the ages of her children. In families of young

children, the husbands were perceived as being less likely to

5.

e

C.

.C

34

approve of her job than when the children were older. Spitze
and Waite (1981) surmised:

This seems to indicate that a husband's perceived

attitude toward his wife working is not based on general

notions about her fulfillment or about women's roles,
but rather it is based on family need. Apparently the
wife perceives that her husband's preference is for her
to stay home when an infant is present, but once
children have reached an age when childcare is more
readily available, perhaps her potential earnings have
become an inducement to her husband to consent to or

encourage her employment. ( p. 120)

Benin and Neinstedt (1985) collected data from single
and dual-earner families and found that the stage of the life
cycle had a significant effect on the happiness of husbands
but not the wives. Husbands of working wives were least
happy in the marriage when school-age children were in the
home, and they were the happiest after the children had left
home. For husbands of housewives, the stage in which they
were the least happy was the pre-school age. Since
housewives were most likely to be responsible for childcare
and domestic chores, the only explanation for this was due to
possible decreased attention and affection from the wife.
They did find though, that the stage of the life cycle did
not have an important effect on the happiness of wives. The
absence of such an effect suggested that the positive and
negative aspects of childbearing canceled each other out,
producing no effect on global happiness. They concluded,
"The presence of children may enrich, complicate, constrain,

and/or reward their lives, but it does not have a predictable

effect on happiness" (Benin and Neinstedt, 1985, p.982).

35

Besides the family life cycle affecting the marriage of
employed wives, the wife's occupational commitment could be a
divisive factor. Houseknecht and Macke (1981) investigated
this by studying women with graduate degrees. Such highly
educated women were believed to be very committed to a
career. Their results did not provide support for either
side. The findings did give strength to the role theory
interpretation which proposed that it was not simply a matter
if the wife worked or not but if her behavior violated role
expectations. They stated, "It appears that it is not
employment status per se that is important but rather the
extent to which family experiences accommodate the wife's
employment" (Houseknecht and Macke, 1981, p. 660). For
example, having a supportive husband who didn't insist that
the wife move to advance his career seemed to be a major
factor.

In contrast, Ladwig and McGee (1986) found that for
women but not for men, occupational commitment had a
significant negative effect on the marital adjustment. They
did discover that having a supportive family environment made
a difference positively for both men and women who were
highly involved in a career. Based on this factor of the
importance of the family, they speculated that the family
social environment might be a crucial variable for
understanding the relationship between work and the family

system.

I”)

(l

36

Besides the wife's occupational commitment, the higher
income of the wife compared to the husband has been another
area believed to cause tension in the marriage. Hardesty and
Betz (1980) observed that the marital adjustment of dual-
career couples was negatively related to the wife's income.
The more the wife contributed to the family income, the more
a negative impact was felt by husbands with high incomes.
Fendrich (1984) found similar results. He stated:

The significant coefficient associated with percentage

of income contributed by the husband suggests that

husbands with employed spouses will feel more distress
if wives' salaries are competitive. The more important

a husband's role as the family breadwinner, the more

health satisfaction he is likely to report. (p. 878)

In opposition to the above perspective, Greenstein
(1990) thought that the earnings from the wife could serve as
a stabilizing force in the marriage. The additional income
definitely might make it less attractive to divorce.
Moreover, he found no positive consistent effect on wives'
earnings and marital disruption. He concluded:

The findings present an interesting implication for

future trends in divorce rates: if wife's income tends

to stabilize marriage, we may find that current and
future cohorts might actually have lower long—term
probabilities of divorce and separation as a result of

this stabilizing effect. (Greenstein, 1990, p. 675)

Another issue that has been speculated to cause
competition and martial dissatisfaction is the wife's higher

occupational attainments versus the husband's. Richardson

(1979) observed three categories of wives: those higher,

A

A
[#4

V

37

equal to, or lower in occupational prestige than their
husbands. He found no significant association between
occupational prestige levels and marital happiness. Yet,
when controlling for presence of children under 18, there was
a significant relationship for all the wives. This indicated
that the effect of children was more important on marital
happiness than occupational inequality of the spouses.
Philliber and Hiller (1983) also examined the wife's
occupational attainments compared to the husband's, but they
tried to find an association here with four outcomes later.
These were marital dissolution, leaving the labor force,
moving to a lower status job, or moving to a female-dominated
occupation. They did find that wife's achievement by itself
did not affect marital disruption. But, certain employment
patterns of women were evidenced among the groups of wives
studied. For example, downward mobility was experienced most
often by professional or managerial women in positions that
have been mainly held by men. The percentage of such women
employed in nontraditional positions who were downwardly
mobile was more than five times the percentage of downwardly
mobile professional or managerial women employed in
traditional positions. They stated,
The strongest finding is the importance of wife's
employment in a nontraditional job as a predictor of
change. Women in nontraditional jobs were more likely
to become divorced, to leave the labor force, or move to

a lower status position than were women in traditional
positions. (Philliber and Hiller, 1983, p.168)

a.»

38

They attributed this to the possibility that such women
had violated role expectations and had threatened gender
identities. They did speculate though, that relative
earnings rather than occupational status might be causing the
tension in such relationships. For example, couples might
sustain the marriage even if the wife has the higher
occupational status, but she must have the lower income
(Haug, 1973). Since lower pay has often been associated with
jobs held by women, men can still hold a lower status job
than the wives and appear to have the superior standing
because of the size of their paycheck (Philliber & Hiller,
1983).

If the wife attained a higher occupational status than
the husband, Philliber and Hiller (1982) believed that only
certain marriages withstood such an arrangement. They were
convinced that it was related to gender identities. If the
gender identity of the husband was predominately masculine
and the wife's was predominately feminine, marital conflict
would result. When the partners were flexible in their
gender roles, they had a better chance of being comfortable
with this arrangement. Hiller and Philliber (1982) declared:

Among non-androgynoous persons when the wife's

occupational attainments exceed the husbands, an

incongruity is created between role expectations and
perceptions of role performances. That incongruity will
result in pressure either ending the marriage or
altering the wife's career. Because androgynous couples
experience no such incongruity, no conflict develops

when the wife's occupational attainments exceed the
husband's. (p. 61)

39

These issues of wife's income, stage of family life,
wife's occupational status, and commitment to her career are

all important factors to observe within dual-earner

 

marriages. With the rise of women in the work force
approaching 60 percent for the nineties, the important
concern will be how these marriages succeed and function as a
cohesive unit.

Since the proposed study plans to observe the

relationship of wife’s employment to clergy marital

’F

satisfaction and his attitudes toward women’s roles in
society, the issue of his wife's employment is important.
Will her employment status hinder or help the marital
satisfaction of clergy? Also, is her employment related to

his views on women's roles in any way?

WW

Religious influence on gender role orientations is not
easy to distinguish. Denominations do not always agree on
what roles are appropriate for women. D'Antonio (1983)
states, "Organized religion does not speak with one voice in
American society" (p. 101). The evangelical movement itself
is not unified regarding family and women's roles. Hargrove

(1983) declares:

While issues concerning the family are likely to show a
particularly high degree of consensus in evangelical
circles, even here evangelical Protestants are not more
a monolithic force than are the mainstream
denominations. (p. 134)

4O

Evangelicals may range from liberal to rigidly conservative
in their attitudes. For example, such evangelicals as Donald
and Lucille Dayton, Letha Scanzoni, and Nancy Hardesty have
supported wider roles for women, families, and sexual styles.
Among the more conservative evangelicals and
fundamentalists, the traditional family pattern is seen as
the God-given family pattern. For them, there is no
compromise with the emerging forms of the family and the
changing sex roles. Some of these changes are viewed as a
Satanic attack on the very foundation of Christian morality.
Larry Christianson, a widely read author among conservative
evangelicals, describes the headship role of the father as
decreed by God. The position of the woman in the family is
one of submission. Christianson (1977) states:
American women today are not subjugated and oppressed in
need of liberation. How anyone could grow up in our
culture during the past 40 years and arrive at such a
notion is incomprehensible. It is precisely the absence
g§)male authority which plagues American culture. (p.
This link between religion and antifeminist attitudes
seems to be related to these conservative and fundamentalist
groups. Tedin (1978) saw this association when he surveyed
women's groups supporting or opposing the Equal Rights
Amendment. What he discovered was the large number of non-
affiliates or people belonging to no church among the pro-ERA
women and the even larger number of fundamentalists among the

anti-ERA women. When the groups were combined, non-

affiliates, Jews, and liberal Protestants comprised 61

 

pe:
fu;

(J.

it)

(n

41

percent of the pro-ERA women. The conservative Protestants,
fundamentalists, and sectarians comprised almost 80 percent
of the anti-ERA women. He concluded:

Quite obviously denominational preference is an

important factor in separating the pro- from the anti-

ERA activists. The women in favor are nonaffilates or

belong to liberal denominations, while the women opposed

tend to belong to conservative or fundamentalist

denominations. (Tedin, 1978, p.61)

McMurray (1978) also saw a similar relationship between
denominations and women's roles among women college
graduates. Women with no religion and Jewish women were both
substantially more likely to identify themselves as feminists
than the others. She declared,

The hypothesis about the order on traditionalism are

generally supported. Baptists and Catholics are the

most traditional, followed by fundamentalist

Protestants, mainline Protestants, Jews, and the

religiously unaffiliated. (McMurray, 1978, p.88)

In contrast to McMurray (1978), Barrish and Welch (1980)
found a weak relationship between religiosity and sexism
among undergraduate students. When controls were established
for demographic variables, the strength of the relationship
diminished more. They attributed that background factors as
ethnic race, parental education, and maternal employment
exercised a stronger effect on gender role attitudes than the
religious beliefs that one held.

The recent research though, has continued to show a

strong association between conservative denominations and

traditional views. Rhodes (1983) asked the question if women

42

should remain in the home and not pursue a career. He found
that Adventist, Mormon, and Baptist males were the most
supportive of this attitude. Women who were the least
supportive of the homemaker attitude were Jewish, Unitarians,
or belonged to no religion. Rhodes (1983) surmised:

Religion does seem to influence sex differences in

occupational choice and disapproval of careers for

married women . . . . Males differ from females least in
religions that afford women equality, and they differ
most in those religions which do not ordain women. The
influence of religion is most apparent in the greater
sex differences observed for Adventists, Mormons, and

Baptists, and in the small sex difference for the no-

religion groups, the Quakers, and the Unitarians.

(p. 106)

Brinkerhoff and Mackie (1984) found the same results
when they narrowly classified denominations. The Mormons
followed by Pentecostals were the most traditional with
Religious Nones again followed by Presbyterians being the
most egalitarian. In addition, Hertel and Hughes (1987),
compiling data from eleven General Social Surveys between
1972 and 1984 found that on their sexism scale, the groups
continued to sort out on a fundamentalist-liberal continuum.
Fundamentalists, again, were found to be most sexist, and
Baptists were the second most conservative. Catholics,
Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists were in the middle
range, and Jews, non—affiliates, and Episcopalians were the
most liberal. They stated:

Individuals who identify with the traditionally more

conservative denominations are decidedly more

conservative than any other groups. . . . In general,
we find support for our first hypothesis that attitudes

43

concerning family values are correlated with

denominational identification. (Hertel and Hughes, 1987,

p. 876)
Moreover, when controls were added for education, income,
age, gender, southern versus non-southern residence, and
urban versus rural residence, the association still remained.

Graswick, Wilcox, and Bird (1990) studied religious
fundamentalism in relationship to patriarchy in the home. In
other words, did being a fundamental mean that the man was
the head and sole authority within the home while the wife
was subservient? They used a single item indicator to measure
this aspect by having the respondent answer if his
denomination believed in the literal interpretation of the
Bible. The responses did correlate perfectly to the order of
conservatism along denominational lines as found in Hertel
and Hughes (1987). They discovered that the strongest
correlation with support for the patriarchal family was
religious fundamentalism. Women and highly educated people
were the least supportive of this arrangement while people
with less prestigious occupations, lower family incomes, and
rural backgrounds were the most supportive. They concluded,
"Religious fundamentalism, not personal religiosity, has a
substantial direct effect on support for the patriarchal
family" (Graswick, Wilcox, and Bird, 1990, p. 365).

Peek, Lowe, and Williams (1991) also observed religious
fundamentalism and gender role attitudes, but they focused on
the differences between men and women in their allegiance to

a group. They did find a strong connection between a

't’

(f

(I)

44

person's belief in biblical literalism and opposition to
women's equality. Yet, a different picture emerged for women
than men in relationship to group affiliation. Among the
women, individual religious convictions were related to their
attitudes about women's roles. They stated:

Women to whom the Word of God is not the gospel truth

are more egalitarian about their gender roles than those

to whom it is . . . women's personal religious beliefs
rather than the large religious groups with which they
are affiliated are related to their gender role

attitudes. (Peek, Lowe, & Williams, 1991, p. 1213)

The opposite occurred for men. Men affiliated with
fundamentalist groups and those who believed in the Bible's
literal truth had less egalitarian orientations toward women.
Men's attitudes seemed to be more influenced by group
connections while the women's were associated with their own
personal convictions. They attributed these differences
between men and women as being the possibility that women
distance themselves from the male-dominated culture of
religious groups and focus on interpersonal relationships
with small groups rather than with larger groups.

In conclusion, conservative Christianity does seem to be
strongly connected to traditional roles for women and the
headship role of the husband within the family. Yet, as
women move increasingly into the working world, what part
religion plays in this will be interesting to observe. Will
the working wife of today find the support and care she may

need among her religious group? Such religious groups as the

Moral Majority from the New Right have already arisen from

45

the past decade to stop these modern trends. Meanwhile, the
church will have to assess what its function will be in the
twentieth century. Will it be one of control or support for
the dual-worker family? D'Antonio (1983) recognizes this
problem:

It is time for religious denominations to give more

emphasis to social support and nurturance mechanisms.

To do so does not mean abandoning values that are

crucial for the survival of the family. On the

contrary, I argue that the changes in the past century
have made it more possible than ever for more people,
women, and men, to realize their human potential.

(p.106)

Since the proposed study plans to investigate the
marital adjustment of clergy, the influence of religion can
not be overlooked. The relationship of religion upon one's
gender role orientations is an important variable in the
assessment of such couples who have wives employed or non—
employed. For example, does religion influence a person's
perspective on traditional or egalitarian roles for women?

This aspect of one's religious beliefs could have a large

impact in a woman's decision to be in the labor force or not.

I lIEl'I . EII'Il
Wm

Trends in egalitarian roles for women have demonstrated
a significant shift from the traditional roles of the past.
This has been evident in the following research of the

seventies. Mason and Bumpass (1975) collected data from a

46

national probability sample of married women under the age of
45. They found strong support for the traditional sex-based
division of responsibilities and for the mother to remain at
home while pre-school age children were present. Yet, there
was a strong consensus that working women deserved equal
wages and equal job opportunities as men. They explained
this difference in attitudes between work and family roles as
proof that the gender role ideology of the women's movement
had not completely filtered down to women in general. In
other words, they believed that women in the general
population did not share the same opinion as the women's
movement that familial sex—roles, women's labor-market
rights, and childcare facilities were all interrelated.
Parelius (1975) studied gender role attitudes of college
women at a state-supported school in New Jersey. She
discovered that a substantial shift toward feminism occurred
between 1969 and 1973. The 1973 sample was more supportive
of equal rights and careers for women. For example, these
respondents believed that a woman's career was equally as
important as her husband's and that a woman should share
equally in the financial support of the family. Parelius
concluded that women were rejecting the economic dependence
and household responsibilities of the traditional wife-mother
role even though they were very much in favor of marriage and
motherhood. Mason, Czajka, and Arber (1976) broadened the
research by examining five sample surveys of married women

from 1964 to 1974. They stated:

47

After examining the results, there can be little
question that women's sex—role attitudes have changed
toward a more egalitarian stance over the past decade.
These changes were not uniform across all attitude
items, but on the average, appear to be as great for the
items that refer to the family as for those referring to

the workplace. (Mason, Czajka, and Arber, 1976, p. 585)
What they did find surprising though, was the magnitude of
women who endorsed the obligation of the husband to share the
housework, the rights of women to keep their jobs while
having children, the rights of women to be considered for top
jobs, and the acceptability for women to remain single.
Thornton and Freedman (1979) further demonstrated that a
shift in egalitarian gender role attitudes had occurred
during the time period of 1962 to 1977, but the impetus of
their change was along general rather than specific areas.

In other words, concerning issues of employment, there was
agreement that men should not have more privileges than
women, but concerning issues related to the domestic realm,
the specialization of roles was still upheld. They
concluded, "These data show more movement towards rejection
of sex segregation as a general principle than towards
rejection of specific forms of segregation" (Thornton and
Freedman, 1979, p. 834).

Has this trend in egalitarian attitudes continued into
the eighties? It has indeed, but at a slower rate than what
was evidenced in the previous decade. Thornton, Alwin, and
Camburn (1983) used data from an 18 year panel study of women

and their children. They asked the question if the trends

were slackening or reversing. They thought this could

48

possibly be the case since the rise of the anti-ERA movement
had gained momentum. They found that the intragenerational
shift toward greater egalitarianism was still pervasive
during this time period. They stated:
Thus, while the changes between 1977 and 1980 were
substantially smaller than those from 1962 to 1977, most
of the evidence suggests that the trend toward more
nontraditional attitudes of the late 1960's and early
1970's continued into the 1980's. (Thornton, Alwin, and
Camburn, 1983, p. 213)
They did conclude though, that as female roles continued to
broaden, the total elimination of traditional sex-based
division of labor did not happen. Tallichet and Willits
(1986) collected information in 1970 from young women as high
school sophomores and then again 10 years later. They too,
found a continuation of shifts from traditional attitudes.
They declared that by 1981, the majority of women
overwhelmingly rejected the ideas that education and job
opportunities were more important for boys, and that every
girl should marry, stay at home, have children, and leave the
major family decisions to her husband. Lastly, Weeks and
Botkin (1987) examined trends in marriage role expectations
of female college students across 23.5 years. They found
similar results that the trends of change continued but at a
slower pace. They saw that the greatest change occurred
between 1961 to 1972 than between 1972 to 1984, but the trend
continued. They did discover however, that from 1978 to

1984, the proportion of total egalitarian responses showed a

slight decline which seemed to indicate a slight movement

49

back toward traditional role expectations. Weeks and Botkin
(1987) concluded:

A casual observation of social change and trends in the

U.S. over the past two and a half decades leaves one

with the impression that the decade of the 1960's was

characterized by rather dramatic social changes and a

relatively swift swing of the pendulum from the

traditional/conservative mood of the 1950's to a more
nontraditional/liberal mood. These continued into the

1970's, but at a slower rate . . . . . the beginning of

the 1980's began the emergence of a new traditionalism

and conservatism as evidenced by such movements as the

moral majority, pro-life, pro-family . . . (p. 57)

In conclusion, the expectation of traditional roles for
women has diminished over the past decades even though the
pace of change may have slowed down. If these egalitarian
trends continue in the future, the domestic realm and
childcare responsibilities at home may undergo changes among
husbands and wives. Since the labor force participation of
women is predicted to increase throughout the next decade,
such issues concerning family work will have to solved and
agreed upon by the dual-earner families of the future.

As women have experienced new roles, certain
characteristics of people have also coincided with these
trends. It is not possible to determine causality here. For
example, whether egalitarianism attitudes cause these
characteristics or vice versa can not be determined. Yet,
certain patterns do emerge with people who are traditional or
nontraditional. Tomeh (1978) found that women were

significantly more willing to accept nontraditional roles

than men. The males were concerned about the children's and

50

husband's interests if the wife departed from a traditional
orientation. In addition, the presence of children continued
to pose a barrier to the wife's employment. Both sexes, but
especially men, felt that their relationship would be
affected if the wife earned a higher salary. Thornton and
Freedman (1979) found that women who were younger, more
educated, married to better educated husbands, and employed
were more likely to adopt egalitarian sex-role attitudes. In
contrast, mothers of large families and fundamental
Protestants tended to hold on to traditional attitudes.
Thornton, Alwin, and Camburn (1983) discovered similar
results. Older women, Protestant fundamentalists, and less
educated mothers showed up again as being related to
traditionalism. In addition, women with substantial post
marital work experience were more egalitarian. Their
findings suggested the expectation that participation in the
labor force was conducive to such modern attitudes.

Tallichet and Willits (1986) found education and women's
employment again correlated with egalitarianism, and women
with higher incomes demonstrated greater role change than did
their lesser paid counterparts. They did find a surprising
result in that married employed women expressed a more modern
position than did their unmarried employed peers. Yet, this
difference declined with increasing time in the labor force
for both groups. Lastly, McBroom (1987) saw a relationship
between one's ranking of the importance of work and a

decrease in traditionalism. His study demonstrated that both

51

sexes from 1975-1980 became less traditional, but again the
greater change occurred among the women.

The question still remains if role changes have been
incorporated into the homefront. Yogev (1981) observed dual-
career marriages and asked if professional women had
egalitarian marital relationships. Her data consisted of 106
married faculty women at Northwestern University. To test
this aspect, she focused on two main issues: women's
perception of the division of the family work and their
perception of their husbands. Her results did not support
the egalitarian pattern in the area of family work; rather,
they were congruent with the traditional female role where
housework and childcare were the women's responsibility. She
attributed this traditional division of labor to the fact
that husbands were resistant and reluctant to increase their
participation in family work and that the women did not want
or expect their husbands to share these tasks equally. In
the area of the wives' perceptions of their husbands, these
same women, though, did perceive themselves as being equal to
their husbands in every way.

How could there have been such a discrepancy here
between egalitarian relationships with the husbands and
traditional attitudes toward family work and childcare?

Yogev (1981) believed that given the accelerated pace of
social change, it was possible that a significant lag
occurred between the external behavior and the internal

attitudes. The Rapoports (1975) described the difficulty of

52

this process by the term 'identity tension line.‘ They used
this concept to explain how far individuals were willing to
go toward establishing new gender roles before reaching the
point of discomfort when these new roles threatened their
self-esteem. These professional women seemed to be unable to
cross such identity tension lines. There was a limit to how
far they could go beyond the traditional roles in which they
had been reared. Yogev (1981) concluded:

Having an egalitarian marital relationship which also

involves egalitarian sharing of housework and childcare

seems, therefore, to be beyond the identity tension line
for today's professional women. These women as a group
thus seem to be currently undergoing a role expansion
process which allows them to expand their horizons in an
internal manner without abandoning traditional functions
and obligations. . . . . What is beyond the identity
tension line of today's professional women might be
within the identity tension line of tomorrow's

professional women. (p. 870)

Continuing in her research about role perceptions of
husbands and wives, Yogev (1987) again found that traditional
stereotypes still were upheld among her dual-career couples.
Marital satisfaction was significantly correlated with
husband's higher earnings and with three traditional
perceptions that the spouses had of each other. These were
that the husband was superior psychologically, was more
intelligent and competent, and had greater professional
success. The wives who were happily married tended to view
their husbands in this manner. Moreover, the husband's

marital satisfaction was related to earning more money than

the wife and perceiving that his wife was less successful

53

professionally. But, the husbands did view their wives as
more intelligent. This last finding was in the opposite
direction and did not fit the stereotype expected. Yet,
since professional and financial success have been associated
with the male's provider role, it was not surprising that his
marital satisfaction increased if these were present.

Looking at these same perceptions, Yogev (1987) wondered
if they would still hold for women in male professions. She
divided the women according to female or male-dominated
positions. Yogev (1987) found no significant differences
between the two groups of women in their perceptions of
gender role stereotypes in the marriage. Thus, while some
women were able to break traditional stereotypes in the work
area, they did not carry this over into the homefront. They
still continued to view their husbands as superior and more
capable in the professional realm.

This slow process of change toward egalitarian attitudes
and behavior at the homefront was also demonstrated in the
recent research of Ray (1988). Both men and women in dual-
career marriages reported moderately high levels of marital
satisfaction. Yet, different patterns of marital
satisfaction emerged for the sexes. Women were still
performing the majority of the household chores, and the work
at home was divided traditionally. The men appeared to have
more power in the decision making aspect of the marriage, and
they held more traditional views than the women. For

example, they were more apt to agree that the mother should

54

stay home if there were small children at home. In the area
of the spouse's amount of involvement in each other's career,
the men and women looked for different things. For men, the
active involvement of their spouses in their careers had the
strongest association with marital satisfaction. This
suggested that the wife's traditional role as helper was
still very important to dual-career husbands. Women, in
contrast, rated their spouses emotional, financial, and chore
support as more important to marital satisfaction than their
partners' active involvement in their careers. Ray (1988)
concluded:

These models may explain in part the slow process of

evolving egalitarian marriages. Men put high value on

the traditional service of a wife and being actively
involved in their husband's career. Their satisfaction
with traditional marriage norms may hinder movement
toward more egalitarian marriages. Men may experience
the wives' lessened involvement, not as, equality, but
as abandonment. Women may continue in traditional

behavior patterns due to guilt feelings. (p. 50)

The proposed study intends to observe the marital
satisfaction of clergy and their attitudes toward women’s
roles. Since roles do seem to be changing for women, the
clergy marriage may be undergoing changes. If the clergy
wife is employed, this may have an effect on the marriage

negatively. Moreover, the clergy’s attitudes toward women’s

roles may be related to his wife’s employment status.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Introduotion

The purpose of the study is to investigate the marital
adjustment of clergy of employed and non-employed wives and
clergy’s attitudes toward women's roles. In this section,
the sample of the study, the measures, the null hypothesis
and alternatives, and data collection procedures are

described. All the data were analyzed by t-tests.

Subjects

The participants of the study were ordained ministers of
the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference who were
attending the annual conference held at Gordon College,

Wenham, Massachusetts during August 4 - 6, 1992.

D . I' E I] S J

The sample consisted of 99 ordained clergy. The sample
was mainly 98 % white males with an age range from 31 to 78
years. The average age was 48 years old. 71.1 % had
master's degrees. The average years in ministry was 16 - 20

years. Forty-three percent of the sample were solo pastors

55

56

or clergy who were the only ministerial staff in the church.
The base salary was on the average between $20,000 - $25,000
only 3 % had a base salary of $40,000 - $50,000, and only 2 %
had a base salary of $50,000-$75,000. Ninety-two percent of
the marriages were in first marriages. 8.2 percent were in a
second marriage through death or divorce. The length of time
at the present church ranged from one year to 31 years with
an average of 8 years. The attendance of the Sunday morning
worship at the churches averaged from 101 - 200 people, and
42 % of the churches were located in rural areas with a
population of 1001 - 5,000. Fifty-eight percent of the wives
were employed outside the home while 40 % were non-employed.
The wife's average number of hours per week was 21 - 30 hours
with an average base salary of $10,000 - $15,000 per year.
Over 55 % of the wives did not bring work home related to
their occupation, and 52 % of the wives were paid by hourly
wages. The 56 wives' occupations were categorized into seven
areas: business, service, education, sales, music, health,
and social service. The largest number of wives with sixteen
each were in the business and educational occupations. The
primary reason the wife worked included financial and
personal reasons or 72 %. The wives' educational level was
on the average, a bachelor's degree or 40.2 %. Only 17.5 %
had a high school degree, and 2.1 % had graduate degrees.

The age of the wives ranged from 26 - 70 years of age with a
mean of 46 years. Most of the sample, 61 out of 99 couples

had children with the average number being two. Two couples

57

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

had six children, one couple had nine children, and 31
couples had no children.
Table 1 Description of Sample
Categories Range %

Race white 98%
Age 31-78 yrs.
Years in Ministry 0 to over 26

Education level Master's degree 71%

Position in Ministry Solo Pastor 43.4%

Senior Pastor 32.3%

Associate 9.1%

Base Salary SIS-20,000 34%

$20-25,000 22.8%

$25-30,000 17.5%

$30-35,000 10.3%

$35-40,000 7.2%

$40-50,000 3.1%

$50-7S,000 2.1%

Marital Status lst Marriage 91.8%

Wife Employed Yes 57.7%

No 40.2%

Hours Wife Works Under 10 17.5%

11-20 22.8%

21-30 14.0%

31-40 36.8%

over 40 8.8%

Wife's Income $1-5,000 17.5%

$5-10,000 33.3%

$10-15,000 21.1%

$15-20,000 7%

$20-25,000 8.8%

$25-30,000 5.3%

$30-35,000 1.8%

$40-50,000 1.8%

How is Wife Paid Hourly 51.9%

Salary 38.9%

Reason Wife Works Personal and Financial 71.9%

Wife's Education H.S. 17.5%

Associate 21.6%

Bachelors 40.2%

Master's 12.4%

Graduate 2.1%
How Long at Present Church 0-31 yrs.

Attendance on Sunday Worship Less than 100 41.3%

100-200 30.4%

200-300 18.5%

400-500 1.1%

500-1000 4.3%

Over 1000 3.3%

Church Location Rural 41.8%

Suburban 37.4%

City 18.7%

Population Under 500 4.4%

500-1000 6.7§

1000-5000 23.3%

5000-10,000 16.7%

10-15,000 6.7%

15-20,000 5.6%

20-50,000 21.1%

50-100,000 4.4%

Over 100,000 11.1%

 

58

BessaroLQesion

A descriptive survey research design was used for the

study. The time dimension of the study was cross-sectional,

and the unit of the analysis was the ordained clergy of the

Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.

1)

2)

Rosoarohjnostions

Is the marital satisfaction of male clergy higher in

mean scores on a measure of marital satisfaction (DAS)

among the following:

a)clergy of employed wives or clergy of non-employed
wives.

b)clergy who have traditional attitudes toward women's
roles or clergy who have non-traditional attitudes
toward women’s roles.

c)clergy who have college-educated wives or clergy who
have non—college-educated wives.

d)clergy in the upper 25th percentile on age or clergy
in the lower 25th percentile on age.

e)clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
or clergy who earn equal to or greater than $25,000
base salary per year.

f)clergy whose wife’s income is less than $10,000 per
year or clergy whose wife’s income is equal to or
greater than $10,000 per year.

Is the male clergy's attitude toward women's roles

higher or lower in mean scores on a measure of attitudes

toward women’s roles (AWS) among the following:

a)clergy who have employed wives or clergy of non-
employed wives.

b)clergy of college-educated wives or clergy of non-
college educated wives.

c)clergy in the upper 25th percentile on age or clergy
in the lower 25th percentile on age.

d)clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
or clergy who earn equal to or greater than $25,000
base salary per year.

e)clergy whose wife's income is less than $10,000 per
year or clergy whose wife's income is equal to or
greater than $10,000 per year.

59

f)clergy who have children at home or clergy who have no
children at home.

3) Do clergy who agree or disagree with the ordination of
women have a higher or lower mean score among the
following:
a)clergy of wives who work less than 21 hours per week
or clergy of wives who work greater than or equal to
21 hours per week.

b)clergy who have traditional attitudes toward women’s
roles measured by the Attitudes toward Women Scale or
clergy who have non-traditional attitudes toward
women’s roles measured by the Attitudes toward Women
Scale.

c)clergy who have college-educated wives or clergy who
have non-educated wives.

d)clergy who are less than 48 years old or clergy who
are equal to or greater than 48 years old.

e)clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
or clergy who earn equal to or greater than $25,000
base salary per year.

f)clergy whose wife’s income is less than $10,000 per
year or clergy whose wife's income is equal to or
greater than $10,000 per year.

g)clergy who have a master's degree or clergy who have
less than a master's degree in education.

h)clergy who score greater than 117 on a measure of
marital satisfaction (DAS) or clergy who score less
than or equal to 117 on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS).

WW5.

W1;

H1 Among clergy sampled, there will be no significant
differences on scores on a measure of marital
satisfaction. (DAS)

Alternatives:

Hl-l Clergy whose wives are employed will have lower scores
on a measure of marital satisfaction (DAS) than clergy
whose wives are non—employed.

H1-2 Clergy who have more traditional attitudes toward
women's roles will have higher scores on a measure of

'1

H1-3

H1-4

Hl-5

Hl-6

Hl-7

60

marital satisfaction (DAS) than clergy who have less
traditional attitudes toward women's roles.

Clergy who have college-educated wives will have lower
scores on a measure of marital satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy who have non-college-educated wives.

Clergy in the upper 25th percentile on age (greater
than 55 years old) will have higher scores on a
measure of marital satisfaction (DAS) than clergy in
the lower 25th percentile on age. (less than or equal
to 39 years old)

Clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
will have lower scores on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than clergy who earn equal to or
greater than $25,000 base salary per year.

Clergy who have children at home will have a lower
score on a measure of marital satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy who have no children at home.

Clergy whose wife's income is less than $10,000 per
year will have a higher score on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than clergy whose wife's income is
equal to or greater than $10,000 per year.

Null_H¥nQLhosisi

H2

Among clergy sampled, there will be no significant
differences on scores on a measure of attitudes toward
women's roles (AWS).

Alternatilesi

H2-1

H2-2

H2-3

H2-4

Clergy who have employed wives will have higher scores
on a measure of attitudes toward women's roles (AWS)
than clergy who have non-employed wives.

Clergy who have college-educated wives will have
higher scores on a measure of attitudes toward women's
roles (AWS) than clergy who have non-college-educated
wives.

Clergy in the upper 25th percentile on age (greater
than 55 years old) will have lower scores on a measure
of attitudes toward women's roles (AWS) than clergy
who are in the lower 25th percentile on age (equal to
or less than 39 years old).

Clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
will have lower scores on a measure of attitudes

H2-5

H2-6

61

toward women's roles (AWS) than clergy who earn equal
to or greater than $25,000 base salary per year.

Clergy whose wife's income is less than $10,000 per
year will have lower scores on a measure of attitudes
toward women's roles (AWS) than clergy whose wife's
income is equal to or greater than $10,000 per year.

Clergy who have children at home will have higher
scores on a measure of attitudes toward women's roles
(AWS) than clergy who have no children at home.

Null—Hypothesis;

H3

Among clergy sampled, there will be no significant
differences on scores among clergy who agree or
disagree with the ordination of women.

Alternatixeoz.

H3-1

H3-2

H3-3

H3-4

H3-5

H3-6

Clergy who have wives who work greater than 21 hours
per week will agree with the ordination of women while
clergy of wives who work less than or equal to 21
hours per week will disagree with the ordination of
women.

Clergy who have traditional attitudes toward women’s
roles on a measure of attitudes toward women’s roles
(AWS) will disagree with the ordination of women while
clergy who have non-traditional attitudes toward
women's roles will agree with the ordination of women.

Clergy who have college-educated wives will agree with
the ordination of women while clergy of non-college-
educated wives will disagree with the ordination of
women.

Clergy who are greater than 48 years old will disagree
with the ordination of women while clergy who are less
than 48 years old will agree with the ordination of
women.

Clergy who earn less than $25,000 base salary per year
will disagree with the ordination of women while
clergy who earn equal to or greater than $25,000 base
salary per year will agree with the ordination of
women.

Clergy whose wife's income is less than $10,000 per
year will disagree with the ordination of women while
clergy whose wife's income is equal to or greater than

62
$10,000 per year will agree with the ordination of
women.

H3-7 Clergy who have less than a master’s degree in
education will disagree with the ordination of women
while clergy with a master’s degree in education will
agree with the ordination of women.

H3-8 Clergy who score greater than 117 on the marital
satisfaction scale (DAS) will disagree with the
ordination of women while clergy who score less than

or equal to 117 on the marital satisfaction scale
(DAS) will agree with the ordination of women.

W

The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) was used to
measure the dependent variable of marital adjustment. The
32-item Dyadic Adjustment Scale assesses four components of
the relationship 1) marital satisfaction (10 items) 2)
consensus- or the extent of agreement on such issues as
finances, goals, career decisions, and friends (13 items) 3)
cohesion - or the extent of the quality of shared leisure
time and other activities (5 items) and 4) affectional
expression (4 items).

Item responses are obtained using a 6-point Likert scale
with the exception of two items requesting a yes- no
response. Two items use a 5-point Likert scale, and one item
uses a 7-point Likert scale. The items are scored such that
higher scores indicate higher levels of marital adjustment.
The total scores may range from 0 to 151.

Evidence for the reliability and the validity of the

Dyadic Adjustment Scale has been reported by Spanier (1976).

63

In a study of 218 married couples and 94 recently divorced
individuals, an internal consistency reliability coefficient
of .96 was found. The levels of reported adjustment among
married couples (M=115) were significantly greater than were
those obtained from divorced individuals who provided
retrospective descriptions of their marriages (M=71).
Correlations between the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the
Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale (Locke & Wallace,
1959) have ranged from r=.86 to r=.93 (Spanier, 1976).

The other dependent variable - attitudes toward women's
roles were measured by the Attitudes toward Women Scale
(Spence & Helmreich, 1978). This scale assesses the beliefs
a person has toward women's appropriate roles and behaviors
in society. This short 15-item scale contains statements
describing the rights, roles, and privileges women ought to
have. The respondents are required to indicate their
agreement with each statement on a 4-point scale ranging from
agree strongly to disagree strongly. Items are scored 0 to
3, with agree strongly response being a 0 rating to disagree
strongly response being a 3 rating. Each statement is scored
according to the response the total score would range from O
to 45. High scores indicate a pro feminist, egalitarian
attitude, and low scores represent a traditional attitude.
The response of agree strongly correlated to the traditional
answer to each item, and the disagree strongly response
correlated to the egalitarian answer. Since the statements

in the scale were worded in traditional or modern directions,

64

the following statements - 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, and 14 were
reversed scored so that the scoring ran the same way for each
question.

The 15-item version has been found to have a correlation
of .91 with the original 55-scale in a sample of college
students. The Cronbach's Alpha for the lS-item form has been
found to be .89, again in a sample of college students.
(Spence, & Helmreich, 1978)

Extensive data concerning score differences between
various groups in expected directions have provided evidence
for the construct validity of the scale. For example,
Helmreich and Spence (1978) have found that women score
higher (are more pro feminist) than men and that college
students score higher than their same sex parent.

The following are independent variables for marital
adjustment: wife's employment status, income, children,
educational level of the wife, age of the clergy, and
traditional or nontraditional attitudes toward women's roles
held by the clergy.

The following are independent variables for attitudes
toward women's roles: employment status of the clergy wife,
her educational level, age of the clergy, income, and
children.

The following are independent variables for the
ordination of women question: employment status of clergy
wife, her educational level, his educational level, age of

clergy, income, clergy's traditional or non-traditional

65

attitudes toward women’s roles, and clergy's marital

satisfaction.

W

The three surveys: the DAS, AWS, and the demographic
information sheet were distributed in packets containing a
cover letter and a slip of paper for the drawing of a $50.00
gift in appreciation for the respondents' time in completing
the surveys. Each minister registered at the conference on
the first day of the annual meeting August 4, 1992 at Gordon
College, Wenham, Massachusetts. As the ministers registered
at the main desk, the ones with a red dot on their folders
which represented all the ordained pastors of the conference
were told to go to the next table. I stood at this next
location and passed out the surveys personally to each
minister. I answered any questions as they received their
surveys. During the conference at the various meetings, the
ministers were told to return their packets by the last day,
Thursday, August 6. 1992. I stood by the registration table
as the ministers returned their packets in a box on the desk
and put their slip of paper for the free $50.00 gift drawing
in another box. If the clergy wanted a summary of the
results sent to them, they were to fill out their name and
address from the cover letter. This was clipped off and put

into a separate box. The free drawing for the $50.00 gift

66

was held at the men's luncheon on the last day of the

conference.

We

Data were analyzed by t-test for all the variables. The
dependent variable- marital adjustment was analyzed by the
following independent variables: wife's employment status,
educational level of the wife, age of clergy, income,
children, and traditional or nontraditional attitudes of the
clergy. The dependent variable - attitude toward women's
roles was analyzed by the following independent variables:
wife's employment status, educational level of the wife, age
of clergy, income, children. The dependent variable-clergy's
agreement or disagreement with women’s ordination was
analyzed by the following, independent variables: employment
hours of the wife, clergy’s traditional or non-traditional
attitudes toward women's roles, clergy’s age, income,
educational level of clergy and wife, and clergy's marital
satisfaction. The level of significance was at the .05

level.

Summary

The ministers of the conference were assessed by their
marital adjustment and their attitudes toward women's roles.

Three instruments were used to measure these: the Dyadic

67

Adjustment Scale, the Attitudes toward Women Scale, and a
demographic survey containing information about their
background.

Four areas were investigated to give a better
understanding of these types of marriages — clergy couples.
These were marital satisfaction, wife's employment, religion
and its impact on gender roles, and trends of women's roles

from the past to the present.

 

CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS

We

The following were the ranges of the scores on the
different measurement tools. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale
(DAS) ranged from 71.0 to 145.0 with a mean of 117.8 and a
standard error of 1.424. The total score ran from 0 to 151.
On the scoring of the DAS, the questions which were not
answered were given a midpoint score based on the range of
the response score. If the response ranged from 0 - 5 in
scoring, the midpoint was 2.5. If the response ranged from
0 - 6 in scoring, the midpoint was 3, and those with 0 - 4
range, the midpoint was 2. If the question received a yes
answer scored 1 or no answer scored 0,, the midpoint was .5.
Ninety-nine surveys were included on this scale. Those with
a score of 117 or lower or 47 clergy were considered at the
low end of the marital adjustment scale. Those with a score
greater than 117 or 52 clergy were considered at the high end
of the scale. The Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) ranged
from 8.0 to 42.0 with a mean of 27.0 and a standard error of
.711. On this scale at least 10 of the 15 items had to be
answered to be counted. Two surveys were dropped which left
a total of 97. The total possible score on the Attitudes
toward Women Scale was 0 to 45.0. If any questions were not
answered, the score was at the midpoint of 1.5 since the

range of responses were from 0 to 3. People who scored 27.0

68

69

or below, or 51 clergy were considered traditional, and those
who scored greater than 27.0 or 46 clergy were
nontraditional.
W

The marital satisfaction of clergy was significantly
different at the .05 significance level between clergy who
had no children at home and clergy who had children at home.
The means in the total marital satisfaction scores were
122.73 and 115.88 respectively. This was a mean difference
of 6.85 between the two groups. This significance level was
at the .028 level. All the other independent variables did
not show up as being significant at the .05 level. In other
words, wife's employment status, clergy's traditional or non-
traditional attitudes toward women's roles, wife's
educational level, clergy's age, and income of spouses did
not make a difference in the marital satisfaction of clergy

(see Table 2).

70

Table 2. Total Dyadic Adjustment Scale of Clergy (DAS) and
Various Independent Variables

DAS t-test Level
scores Standard Standard of
Variables Means Deviation Error Significance

 

wife employment 119.70 12.99 1.74
N=56
vs.

non-employment 115.74 15.69 2.51 .184
N=37

 

traditional 51 115.33 14.48 2.03 .063
vs.

non-traditional
attitudes (AWS) 46 120.72 13.66 2.02

 

non-college
educated wife 18 116.36 17.08 4.02
vs.

college educated
wife 79 118.42 13.49 .579

 

lower 25th
percentile on age 117.27 13.11 2.80
of clergy (39 yrs.
or less) 22

vs.

upper 25th
percentile on age 119.83 15.84 3.11 .550
of clergy (greater
than 55 yrs.) 26

 

clergy earn less
than $25,000 base 116.64 13.60 1.79
salary 58

vs.

clergy earn 2
$25,000 base 119.92 14.99 2.40 .266

salary per year 39

 

no children at
home 31 122.73 12.53 2.25 *.028
vs.
children at home 115.88 14.55 11.86
61

 

wife's income <
$10,000 a year 31 120.02 13.22 2.38 .484
vs.

wife's income 2
$10,000 a year 26 117.54 13.21 2.59

 

 

 

 

Significance Level: *=.05, **=.01, ***=.001, ****=.0001

71

(See Figure 3) This difference in marital satisfaction
between clergy of no children at home and children at home is
demonstrated in Figure 3. The average marital satisfaction
score of clergy was 117. Clergy with children at home scored
below the mean or 115.88 while clergy with no children at

home scored above the mean or 122.73.

72

TOTAL DYADIC ADJUSTMENT
SCALE OF CLERGY AND CHILDREN
OR NO CHILD AT HOME

Significant t-test a-.028

 

I Chilean at Home
Tomi Dyadic Scots

[Moon

130 --
E No Child at Home

 

 

 

 

‘25 " 122.73
120 .
L 117
Ian Dyadic "533
Mluetment Score of 115 <-

Clergy

 

110-1-

105 1}

i
100i

 

 

 

 

 

Chlldren or No Child

Figure 3. Total Dyadic Adjustment Scale of Clergy (DAS) .
With children at home or no children at home.

73

On the dyadic adjustment scale, clergy were asked to
rank the extent of agreement or disagreement between
themselves and the spouse on 15 items. The specific items or
questions that were answered on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale
seemed to indicate a high degree of consensus or marital
satisfaction among the clergy. All of the fifteen specific
aspects were rated very high with a “almost always agree”
response. Moreover, 77.8% answered question 16 (“How often
do you discuss or have considered divorce, separation?”) with
a “never” response. Question 21 (“How often do you
quarrel?”), 43.4% responded “occasionally”, and 47.5% said
“rarely”. Question 25 (“How often did the couple exchange
stimulating ideas?”), 54.5% of the clergy said once or twice
a week. Questions 29 and 30 (“Are you too tired for sex?” or
“Did you not show love during the last few weeks?”), the
average answer was “no” for both with high rates of 62.6% and
74.7% respectively. Question 31 which asked the respondent
to rate the marriage in degree of happiness, had 33.3% who
were “very happy”, 35.4% who were “extremely unhappy”, and
4.0% who were “perfect”. Only 1.0% was “extremely unhappy”,
and 2.0% were “fairly unhappy”. This means that 72.7% of the
clergy rated their marriages as very happy or perfect. (see

Table 3)

Table 3. Dyadic Adjustment Scale and Specific Items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

often do you
quarrel?

 

 

 

 

 

Specific Items Response % Means Standard St.
Error Dev.

family finances almost always 52.5 3.8 .074 .741
agree N=52

matters of almost always 53.5 3.7 .074 .739

recreation agree N-53

religious matters almost always 46.5 4.4 .059 .592
agree N=46

demonstrations of ahmost always 54.5 3.9 .072 .716

affection agree N854

friends almost always 60.6 4.17 .061 .607
agree N=60

sex relations almost always 56.6 3.8 .08 .800
agree N-56

conventionality almost always 46.5 3.87 .089 .888
agree N=46

philosophy of life almost always 47.5 4.16 .076 .752
agree N=47

in-laws almost always 48.5 4.05 .077 .770
agree N=48

aims, goals almost always 58.6 4.15 .063 .629
agree N=58

amount of time spent almost always 40.4 3.66 .088 .871

together agree N-40

making major almost always 54.5 4.05 .072 .716

decisions agree N=54

household tasks almost always 52.5 3.83 .08 .796
agree N=52

leisure time and. almost always 50.5 3.68 .084 .831

activities agree N850

career decisions almost always 55.6 4.29 .068 .674
agree N-55

Question 16 Discuss never N-77 77.8 4.71 .061 .606

terminating your

relationship?

Question 20 Do you never N-64 64.6 4.56 .067 .671

regret that you

married?

Question 25 1 or 2x week 54.5 3.08 .093 .922

Stimulating exchange N854

of ideas

Question 29: no N=62 62.6 .64 .048 .478

Being too tired for

sex

Question 30: Not no N874 74.7 .76 .043 .425

showing love

Question 31: Rating' very happy 33.3 4.05 .112 1.110

of marital happiness N=33

Question 21 How rarely N-47 47.5 3.50 .069 .691

75

WW

There was a significant difference at the .05
significance level of clergy's attitudes toward women’s roles
among clergy who had employed wives or clergy who had non-
employed wives (see Table 4). The clergy of employed wives
had higher means of 29.29 with a st. dev. of 5.95 and st.err.
of .802 than the clergy of non-employed wives who had means
of 24.91 with a st. dev. of 7.91 and st.err. of 1.284. This
was a difference of means of 4.38 between the two groups.
This was highly significant at the .003 level. The other
independent variables of wife’s education, clergy's age,
income of spouses, and children did not make any difference
in the clergy's age, income of spouses, and children did not
make any difference in the clergy's attitude toward women's

roles.

Table 4.

76

Independent Variables

Among:

Means

Standard Standard
Deviation Error

Clergy’s Attitudes Toward Women Scale and

t-test Level
of
Significance

 

employed wives
(58)

vs.

non-employed wives
938)

29.

24.

29

91

5.

7.

95

91

.802

1.284

**.003

 

non-college
educated wife (17)
vs.

college educated
wife (78)

26.
27.

53
67

.72

.17

1.631

.811

.544

 

lower 25th
percentile on age
of clergy (S 39
yrs.) (21)

vs.

upper 25th
percentile on age
of clergy (> 55
yrs.) (26)

28.

26.

52

65

.92

.01

.336

 

wife's income less
than $10,000 a
year (31)

vs.

wife's income 2
$10,000 a year
(25)

29.

29.

29

02

.44

.64

.98

.868

 

clergy who earn
less than $25,000
a year base salary
(56)

vs.

clergy who earn 2
$25,000 per year
base salarygj39)

27.

27

11

.47

.94

.95

.927

.800

 

no children at
home (31)

vs.

children at home
(59)

Significance Level:

 

25.

28.

69

27

*=.05,

 

.51

.93

**=001,

.90

 

 

.09

***=.001, ****=.0001

77

(See Figure 4) This difference between clergy of
employed and non—employed wives and their attitudes toward
women’s roles is shown in figure 4. The mean of the clergy
was 27 on the Attitude toward Women Scale. Clergy of
employed wives had a mean score of 29.29 or above the
average. Clergy of non—employed wives had a mean score of

24.91 or below the average.

ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN
SCALE OF CLERGY OF EMPLOYED
AND NON-EMPLOYED WIVES.

Significant t-test tat-.003

 

 

 

AWS Score

I Non-Employ Vlfives
45 --

[3 Mean of Wives
40 ~-
35 __ E Employed Wives
30 -- 27

Mean Score of 24.91

 

Attitude 25 r
Toward 20 ..
Women Scale 15

 

 

 

 

 

 

I 1

Employed or Non-Employed

Figure 4. Attitudes Toward Women, Scale of Clergy.

78

C] , E I D. I '|] I] : i. I. E
Homon

There was only one significant difference among clergy
who support or do not support women’s ordination. The
difference of the clergy showed up in the area of attitudes
toward women’s roles. The clergy who were non-traditional
scored a mean of 2.16 on the Attitude toward Women Score, and
clergy who were traditional scored a mean of 1.60 on the
Attitude toward Women Score. The significance level was at
the .000 level which was highly significant at the .05 level
(See Figure 5). The other variables did not make a
difference among the clergy who were supportive or non-
supportive of women’s ordination (See Table 5). These
variables were clergy’s age, educational level of the clergy
and his wife, income, wife’s hours of employment, and
clergy’s marital satisfaction. The ordination of women
question also ran in the expected direction on the Attitudes
toward Women Scale. Non-traditional clergy who scored
greater than 27 on the scale were 65.9% in favor of
ordination while traditional clergy who scored equal to or
less than 27 on the scale were 81.6% opposed to ordination.
(See Table 6) The breakdown of the clergy sample was
represented by 40.4% who supported women’s ordination and

59.6% who opposed women's ordination. (see Table 7)

79

Clergy’s Agreement or Disagreement with Women’s
Ordination and AWS

Significant t-test tit-.000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 . .No
DMeen
2.16 I“

Mean of 2 " L

Attitudes 15

toward

Women's Roles

(AWS) 1 ..

0 - : :
Mean Yes

 

Dis/Agree wlth Women Ordination

Figure 5. Disagree/Agree with Women’s Ordination

 

Table 5.

Variables

Y/N

80

Mean

St. Dev.

St.

Err.

Clergy's Agreement or Disagreement of Women's
Ordination Among Various Variables

Prob.

 

Clergy’s age
of > 48 yrs.
old or S 48
yrs. old

Yes-37
No-53

49.24
47.02

12
10

.72
.56

2.09
1.45

.369

 

Clergy who has
Masters degree
vs. Clergy
with < Masters
degree

Yes-37
No-55

3.11
2.98

.57
.95

.09
.13

.471

 

Clergy with
less than
25,000 base
salary vs.
clergy with 2
25,000 base
salary

Yes-37
No-55

.71
.51

.28
.20

.970

 

Clergy whose
wife works per
week 2 21 hrs.
vs. clergy
whose wife
works < 21
hrs.

Yes-24
No-28

raw

.25
.37

.26
.26

.923

 

Clergy whose
wife's income
2 10,000 per
yr. vs. clergy
whose wife’s
income is <

10,000 per yr.

Yes-23

No-29

.61
.53

.38
.28

.483

 

Clergy with
college
educated wives
vs. non-
college-
educated

Yes-37
No-55

.49
.25

.25
.17

.103

 

Clergy with
non-
traditional
(AWS) vs.
traditional

Yes-38
No-55

.40
.38

.06
.05

.000

****

 

Clergy who
score < 117 or
2 117 on DAS

 

Yes-38
No—56

 

117.53
117.98

 

13.
.21

15

29

 

 

.881

 

 

81

Table 6. Attitudes toward Women Scale by Ordination of
Women.

Ordination of Women

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attitude toward
Women Scale Yes No Row Total
Traditional 9 40 49
S 27 18.4 81..6 52.7
score 23.7 72.7
9.7 43.0
Non-Traditional 29 15 44
> 27 65.9 34.1 47.3
score 76.3 27.3
31.2 16.1
Column 38 55 93
Total 40.9 59.1 100.0

Chi Square = .00000 Significance
Chi Square Value = 21.68381

 

Table 7. Ordination of Women Question.
. l Standard Standard
# ‘ Yes # No Means Error Deviation
Do you believe 3940.49; 56 59.6% .596 .051 .493
in ordination
of women? 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

82

SummarmLNullLanLAltsrnatixos

(See Table 8) This table summarizes the findings of the
study. All the null hypotheses H1, H2, and H3 were rejected.
The following alternatives were accepted at the .05
significance level: Hl-6, H2-1, and H3-2. Alternative H1-6
which stated that marital satisfaction was significantly
different for clergy of children at home versus clergy of no
children at home was significant at the .028 level. H2-1
which stated that clergy of employed wives had non-
traditional attitudes toward women’s roles while clergy of
non-employed wives had traditional attitudes was significant
at the .003 level. H3—2 was accepted at the .000
significance level. Clergy who had traditional attitudes
toward women's roles did disagree with the ordination of
women while clergy who had non-traditional attitudes toward
women's roles were supportive of women's ordination. The

rest of the alternatives were rejected at the .05 level.

 

 

Table 8.

83

Null Hypothesis

Null Hypotheses and Alternatives.

Accept
or
Reject

Level
of
Significance

 

H1

Among clergy sampled, there
will be no significant
differences or scores on a
measure of marital
satisfaction.

Reject

 

Alternatives

 

H11

Clergy whose wives are
employed will have lower
scores on a measure of
marital satisfaction (DAS)
than clergy whose wives are
non-employed.

Reject

.184

 

1:12

Clergy who have more
traditional attitudes toward
women’s roles (i.e., lower
scores on a measure of
Attitude toward Women Scale-
AWS) will have higher scores
on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy who have less
traditional attitudes toward
women's roles (i.e., or
score high on a measure of
Attitude toward Women Scale-
AWS).

Reject

.063

 

H13

Clergy who have college-
educated wives will have
lower scores on a measure of
marital satisfaction (DAS)
than clergy who have non-
college educated wives.

Reject

.579

 

r114

Clergy in the upper 25th
percentile on age (> 55 yrs.
old) will have higher scores
on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy in the lower 25th
percentile on age (or S 39
yrs. old).

Reject

.550

 

r115

 

Clergy who earn less than
$25,000 base salary per year
will have a lower score on a
measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy who earn 2 than
$25,000 base salary per
year.

 

Reject

 

.266

 

84

Table 8. Continued.

 

1116

 

31.,

Clergy who have children at
home will have a lower score
on a measure of marital
satisfaction (DAS) than
clergy who have no children
at home.

Accept

*.028

 

'Clergy whose wife's income
is less than $10,000 per
year will have a higher
score on a measure of
marital satisfaction (DAS)
than clergy whose wife's
income is 2 than $10,000 a
year.

Reject

.484

 

Null Hypothesis

 

H2

Among clergy sampled, there
will be no significant
differences on scores on a
measure of attitudes toward
women's roles (i.e. Attitude
toward Women Scale - AWS).

Reject

 

 

Hz1

 

322

H23

Alternatives

 

Clergy who have employed
wives will have a higher
score on a measure of
attitudes toward women's
roles (AWS) than clergy who
have non-employed wives.

Accept

**.003

 

'Clergy who have college-
educated wives will have a
higher score on a measure of
attitudes toward women's
roles (AWS) than clergy who
have non-college-educated
wives.

Reject

.544

 

-Clergy in the upper 25th
percentile on age (i.e., >
55 yrs. old) will have a
lower score on a measure of
attitude toward women's
roles (AWS) than clergy who
are in the lower 25th
percentile on age (i.e. S 39

 

yrs. old).

 

Reject

 

.336

 

85

Table 8. Continued.

 

H24

 

H25

Clergy who earn less than
$25,000 a year base salary
will have a lower score on a
measure of attitudes toward
women's roles (AWS) than
clergy who earn 2 than
_§25,000 a year base salary.

Reject

.800

 

Clergy whose wife's income
is less than $10,000 a year
will have a lower score on a
measure of attitude toward
women's roles (AWS) than
clergy whose wife’s income
is 2 than $10,000 a year.

Reject

.868

 

H26

Clergy who have children at
home will have a higher
score on a measure of
attitudes toward women's
roles (AWS) than those who
have no children at home.

Reject

.09

 

Null Hypothesis

 

H3

Among clergy sampled, there
will be no significant
differences on scores among
clergy who agree or disagree
with the ordination of
women.

Reject

 

Alternatives

 

H31

Clergy who have wives who
work > 21 hours per week
will agree with the
ordination of women while
clergy of wives who work S
21 hours per week will
disagree with the ordination
of women.

Reject

.923

 

H32

Clergy who have traditional
attitudes toward women's
roles on a measure of
attitudes towards women's
roles (AWS) will disagree
with the ordination of women
while clergy who have non-
traditional attitudes toward
women’s roles will agree
with the ordination of

 

women .

 

Accept

 

.OOOOO

****

86

Table 8. Continued.

 

H33

 

H34

Clergy who have college-
educated wives will agree
with the ordination of women
while clergy of non-college-
educated wives will disagree
with the ordination of
women.

Reject

.103

 

'Clergy who are > 48 years
old will disagree with the
ordination of women while
clergy who are < 48 years
old will agree with the
ordination of women.

Reject

.369

 

H35

Clergy who earn < $25,000
base salary per year will
disagree with the ordination
of women while clergy who
earn 2 $25,000 base salary
per year will agree with the
ordination of women.

Reject

.970

 

H35

Clergy whose wife's income
is < $10,000 per year will
disagree with the ordination
of women while clergy whose
wife's income is 2 $10,000
per year will agree with the
ordination of women.

Reject

.483

 

H37

Clergy who have < a master's
degree in education will
disagree with the ordination
of women while clergy with a
master's degree in education
will agree with the
ordination of women.

Reject

.471

 

H33

Significance level: *=.05, **=.01,

Clergy who score > 117 on
the marital satisfaction
scale (DAS) will disagree
with the ordination of women
while clergy who score S 117
on the marital satisfaction
scale (DAS) will agree with

 

the ordination of women.

 

Reject

***=.001,

 

.881

****=.0001

87

Ellil' J E' ii

There was no significant difference between total dyadic
adjustment of clergy on the basis of wife's income. But, a
certain pattern did emerge when the wife's income was
categorized in four ways: less than $5,000 a year, equal to
$5,000 - $10,000 a year, over $10,000 - $15,000 a year, and
greater than $15,000 a year. The total dyadic scores were
highest in group 2 - the $5,000 - $10,000 per year with
122.79 mean and standard error 3.17 and standard deviation
13.79, and the lowest dyadic scores were in group 1 - the
less than $5,000 per year with a 115.63 mean and standard
deviation of 11.44 and standard error 3.30 at the F

Probability level of .4520. (see Table 9 and Figure 6)

Table 9. Total Dyadic Adjustment of Clergy by Wife’s Income.

Standard Standard
Means Deviation Error F. Prob.

 

 

 

 

 

Group 1 less $5,000 115.63 11.44 3.30 .452
Group 2 $5,000-$10,000 122.79 13.79 3.17
Group 3 $10,000-$15,000 117.33 11.02 3.18
Group 4 over $15,000 117.71 15.25 4.08

P < .05

 

 

 

88

TOTAL DYADIC ADJUSTMENT
SCALE OF CLERGY AND WIFE’S INCOME

Wife's Income

Total Dyadic Score

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

    

lMean
‘30 " El> $15,000

l$10,000 to $15,000
125 £155,000 to $10,000

I<$5.000 Wives 122.79
120 --

117 117.71 117.33
' 115.53

115 -
110 -
105 T
100 J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Total Dyadic Adjustment, Scale of Clergy.

89

Also in the range of total dyadic scores for each group,
the highest score of 145.00 was found in group 2. (see Table
10) The lowest score of total dyadic adjustment was within

group 4 with a low score of 80.00.

Table 10. Range of Total Dyadic Scores by Wife’s Income.

 

Range
Group 1 less $5,000 99.5 - 139.0
Group 2 $5,000-$10,000 94.0 - 145.0
Group 3 $10,000-$15,000 100.0 - 142.0
Group 4 over $15,000 80.0 - 137.0

The same pattern showed up for Question 31 where the
clergy were asked to rank their marriage in degrees of
happiness along seven categories: extremely unhappy, fairly
unhappy, a little unhappy, happy, very happy, extremely
happy, and perfect. All of the four incomes were ranked very
happy but the highest score in happiness was again with group
2 with a mean of 4.58 and standard deviation of .84 and
standard error of .19 at the F Probability level of .1914.

(see Table 11)

90

Table 11. Question 31 - Rating of Marital Happiness by Wife’s

 

 

 

 

 

Income.
Standard Standard
Means Deviation Error F. Prob.
Group 1 less $5,000 4.33 .99 .28 .1914
Group 2 $5,000-$10,000 4.58 .84 .19
Group 3 $10,000-$15,000 4.08 .90 .26
Group 4 over $15,000 3.86 1.17 .31

 

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS

This study investigated whether or not the marital
satisfaction of clergy and their attitudes toward women’s
roles were related to his wife’s employment. Since women are
entering the labor force in increasing numbers, it is assumed
that clergy wives are following the same trends. The study
sought to discover the marital satisfaction of clergy with
employed or non-employed wives. Also, the attitudes that the
clergy held toward women’s roles may have an effect on the
employment status of the wife. For example, if the clergy is

traditional, is the wife working or not?

W

Having children in the home did make a difference
negatively in the marital satisfaction of clergy. This
finding does agree with the vast amount of research that has
found child bearing years for couples and higher marital
satisfaction after the children have left home (Rollins and
Feldman 1970, Rhyne 1981).

The employment status of the wife had no significant
effect on the total marital adjustment of the clergy. This
finding is opposite to the early research (Axelson 1960,
Orden & Bradburn 1969, Burke & Weir 1976) which found

negative consequences with wife’s employment. This coincides

91

92

with later research of Wright (1978), Locksley (1980), and
Smith (1985) that found no difference in the happiness of the
marriage if the wife was employed or not.

Why in these marriages was wife’s employment not a
significant factor in marital satisfaction? Part of the
reason for this may lie in taking a closer look at wives
employment. These clergy wives were working on the average
21-30 hours a week with $10,00$15,000 salary per year on an
hourly wage. Only 1.8 percent of the wives earned over
$30,000 per year. The clergy marriages in this study may be
content because most of the wives were working part-time and
were not competing with the husband's occupation.

If the wife attains a higher salary than the clergy and
is deeply committed to her career, the marital satisfaction
might decrease for the clergy. Ladwig & McGee (1986) found
that for women but not for men, high commitment to a career
had a negative affect on the marital adjustment. Moreover,
Hardesty & Betz (1980) and Fendrich (1984) discovered that
the higher income contributed by the wife caused a negative
impact on the husbands. Since few of the wives in the study
were competing with the clergy in salary or had full-time
careers, this aspect could not be investigated. It would be
interesting to see in the future what might happen to clergy
marriages if wives are more heavily involved in careers that
pay well.

The wife’s income compared to the clergy's did show an

interesting pattern in the marital satisfaction scores of the

93

clergy. When the wife's income was categorized in four ways:
less than $5,000, $5,000-$10,000, over $10,000-$15,000, and
over $15,000, the marital satisfaction changed. The highest
mean was in the group of the $5,000-$10,000 per year. When
the clergy wife earned more than $10,000 a year, the marital
satisfaction began to drop. This may suggest that the wife
can not earn a higher salary without causing some
dissatisfaction to the male clergy.

In the 15 specific items on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale,
which asked the clergy to show the extent of agreement or
disagreement between themselves and their wives, none showed
up as tensions within the marriage. Hartley (1978) found low
levels of satisfaction in household tasks and amount of time
spent together. These did not show up as important in the
study, but two items, leisure time interests and amount of
time together did have the lowest means of 3.67 and 3.66
respectively. As might be expected though, the highest mean
4.4 was found in the item of agreement of religious matters.

There was no significant relationship between marital
satisfaction of clergy and their attitudes toward women's
roles. Even though non-traditional clergy scored higher on

the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, it was not significant.

Wes

Since the wife was not included in the survey, the

couples could not be classified as modern or traditional

94

according to their views of women’s roles. Li & Caldwell
(1987) and Bowen & Orthner (1983) both found that marital
adjustment was lower for traditional husbands and modern
wives. In addition, Li & Caldwell (1987) found better
adjustment in the marriages where the husband was more
egalitarian than the wife. If the clergy wife pursues a
career and is more modern than the clergy husband, the
marital satisfaction might decrease for the traditional
clergy. Since the study did not cover this area of
classifying couples as modern or traditional, this will need
to be done for future research.

The clergy’s attitudes toward women’s roles were found
to be strongly significant in relationship to the wife’s
employment status. The clergy of employed wives had higher
scores on the Attitudes toward Women's Scale than those
married to non-employed wives. Even though the direction of
causality can not be established here, there is an
association between the two. If the clergy is egalitarian in
his views of women's roles, it is not surprising that he
would be supportive of her employment. The principle of
accommodation (Li & Caldwell, 1987) seems to apply in this
situation. This means that the egalitarian husband is
willing to give up some of his power in the relationship that
has been associated with the role of the husband. The
egalitarian husband is not concerned with being the sole
bread-winner but is willing to accommodate for the wife to

pursue her own independent interests. Moreover, if the

95

clergy is traditional in his views of women’s roles, he may
be less supportive of her employment.

Clergy’s attitudes toward women's roles were not
affected by wife’s education, his age, his salary, her
salary, and children. These findings contradict the vast
amount of research that has found strong relationships
between egalitarianism and education, age, income, and
religious affiliation. (Thornton & Freedman, 1979, Thornton,
Alwin, & Camburn, 1983, and Tallichet & Willits, 1986) Not
enough variation in the sample may account for these factors
not showing up. In the future, other denominations will be
surveyed to give a broader scope.
WWW

Besides wife’s employment as being related to clergy’s
attitudes toward women’s roles, the issue of ordination of
women in ministry was strongly corrected with his gender role
attitudes. Clergy were asked to respond to the question if
they agreed or disagreed with the ordination of women. His
answer was related to his Attitudes toward Women Scale score.
Even though causality can not be determined, the clergy who
were most traditional, 81.6%, were opposed to ordination. On
the other hand, the more modern clergy agreed with the
ordination of women. This ran in the expected direction and
did suggest that clergy who agreed with ordination of women
were higher on the Attitude toward Women Scale.

In conclusion, the majority of clergy seemed to be in

happy marriages. Moreover, 77.8% said they had never

 

96

considered divorce. Even though the stability of the
marriage seemed strong, this does not always mean that the
marriage is happy. (Lewis & Spanier, 1979) The external
restraints of religious beliefs could prevent the possibility
of divorce among these couples. It will be vital in the
future to continue to assess how these couples are doing in
their marital satisfaction even if the divorce rate might be
low.

The model of Lewis and Spanier (1979) pointed out the
factors of satisfaction with wife's working and role fit as
important to the marital quality of the couple. In this
study of clergy marriages, the wife's employment did not seem
to harm the clergy’s marital satisfaction.

Yet, as women increase in their participation in the
labor force, the marital satisfaction of clergy couples will
be important to observe. It will be necessary to survey both
the clergy husband and wife to see if there is any difference
in satisfaction. If the clergy wife chooses a career and
earns a higher salary, what effect will this have on the
couple in marital happiness? How these couples adapt to
changes as women move out of traditional roles will be

significant to investigate.

APPENDIX

 

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 

OMOFVICEPIESDENTFOIW mtuusmc-mm-maueu
ANDDEANOFTHEGMDUATESCHOOl

June 18. 1992

Betty Jean Longhurst
Box 19
Maple Rapids, MI 48835

RE: MARITAL SATISFACTION OF‘CLERGY AND EGALITARIAN ATTITUDES, 1R8 #92-307
Dear Ms. Longhurst:

The above project is exempt from full UCRIHS review. The proposed research
protocol has been reviewed by a member of the UCRIHS committee. The rights and
welfare of human subjects appear to be protected and you have approval to conduct
the research.

You are reminded that UCRIHS approval is valid for one calendar year. If you
plan to continue this project beyond one year, please make provisions for
obtaining appropriate UCRIHS approval one month prior to June 11, 1993.

Any changes in procedures involving human subjects must be reviewed by UCRIHS
prior to initiation of the change. UCRIHS must also be notifed promptly of any
problems (unexpected side effects, complaints, etc.) involving human subjects
during the course of the work.

Thank you for bringing this project to my attention. If I can be of any future
help, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Sincerely,

   

 

. .n Research Involving
Human Subjects (UCRIHS)

DEV/9.1m

cc: Dr. Anne Soderman

mus-wwwwym

97

Box l9
Maple Rapids. MI 48853

Date

Dear Participant:

I am currently a student at Michigan State University working on a Master's Degree in Family Studies
in the Department or Family and Child Ecology. lam also married to a 4C's pastor and have been in
ministry with him for 13 years. This research study is designed to examine the marital adjustment oi
clergy. Specifically. it focuses on attitudes about women's roles and the employment of women.

You are asked to complete each oi the three surveys in the packet: The Dyadic Adjustment Scale.
The Attitudes Toward Women Scale. and The Demographic Data Form. This should take approxi-
mately 30 minutes. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you are free to stop filling out the
survey forms at any time without penalty. Because your answers to the questionnaires will remain
totally anonymous. please do not put your name on the questionnaires. A summary ot the results will
be made available to you upon request by filling out the loan below and returning it at the registration
desk in the place provided. Completion of the survey form will be prooi oi your consent to participate
in this research project.

Enclosed in each packet is a ticket for a gilt certificate of $50.00 for a tree dinner for two. When you
return the packet at the registration desk at the conference. this ticket will be placed into a box tor a
drawing. The winner for the tree dinner will be announced on the last day oi the conference. This is
to show my appreciation for your time and effort in completing the surveys. Thank you tor your coop
oration.

Sincerely.

Jean Longhurst

Yes. I would like a summary ot the results at this study sent to me.

My name and address:

 

 

 

 

ale"

 

99

MARITAL ADJUSTMENT SURVEY OF CLERGY

Conservative Congregational Christian Conierence

August 3-7, 1992

Gordon College
Wenham, Massachusetts

Investigator: Betty Jean Longhurst. M.A.

 

 

 

 

 

Gettlng married Is easy.
Staying marrled ls more difficult.
Staylng happily marrled tor a Illetlme would be consldered among the fine arts.

A l‘

 

100

A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CLEnav

SECTION 1

Demographic Data

Directions: The tollowing iniormation about you and your iamlty wll hep us with our study oi clergy iamilies. Please circle
the appropriate letter or fill in the blanks with your response.

1. What Is your race?

a) White c) Spanish

b) Black d) Other

 

2. Whatls your gender?
'a) male b) tomato

3. What Is your age?

 

4. Howmanyyearshaveyoubeenlnthemlnletry‘l

a) 0-5 years c) "-15 years e) 21-25 years

b) 640 years d) 16-20 years - i) 26 years or more
5. What Is your educational level?

a) associate's degree at master‘s degree

b) bachelor's degree d) doctoral door”

e) other

 

e. What Is your posltlon In mlnlstry?

a) serfior pastor c) solo pastor
b) associate pastor d) youth pastor
e) other

 

7. What is your base salary?

a) $15,000-320.000 e) 335.001 640,000
b) 320,001-325.000 O 340001650900
c) 325001630900 0) 350,001-375,000
d) 330901635900 h) over 575.000

a)
b)

C)

a)
b)

C)

10.

a)

11.

101

What is your lncorne In the loliowlng?

 

 

 

 

car allowance d) housing allowance
medital insurance e) retirement
utilities 0 other

 

 

What Is your marital status? It unmarried. go on to meatlon 23.

 

neverrmrrled e) divorcedandlivingasshgleperson
married. iniirstmarriage i) widowedandlivingasslngleperson
married. in second or subsequent marriage 9) other

separated and living as single person

Is your wile employed? It your wile ls unemployed. go on to question 1 a.
yes b) no

it yes. how many hours does she work per week?

 

a) under 10 hours d) 3140 hours

0) 11-20 hours e) more than 40 hours

c) 21-30 hours

12. How much does your wile earn per year?

a) 51.000.55.000 9) 330,001-335,000

b) 85.001610.000 h) 335001640000

c) 510,001-515,000 l) 540901650000

d) 315.001620.000 i) 350001675000

e) 520001625000 k) over $75,000

l) 525,001-530,000

13. What is your wlte'a occupation?

14. Does your wlte bring work home related to her employment?
Yes No

It yes. how many hours per week?

a) 1-5hoursaweek c) 11-15hoursawssk

b) 6-10hoursaweek d) overtShoursaweek

15. is your wile paid hourly or by a salary?

a) hourly eamings b) salary earnings

 

 

102

16. What is the prknary reason your wile works?

a) Ior iinancial reasons c) both oi the above
b) tor personal iuliillmere

17. Are you supportive oi your wlte working?

a) yes b) no

18. What ls your wlte's highest educational level?

a) high school degree e) graduate degree
b) associate degree 1) doctoral degree
c) bachelor's degree g) other

 

d) master’sdegree

 

is. What Is your wlte's age?
20. It your wlte is currently not employed. does she plan to work In the tuture?
8) yes b) no

21. How many children are Ilvlng at home? (It no children. go on to question 23.)

 

22. What are the children's ages? Check all that apply.

 

 

 

 

0-12 months 6-12 years
13 WMQ years 13.18 years
3-5 years ’ over 18 years

 

 

 

23. How long have you been at your present church?

24. Please estimate attendance at your church on a Sunday worship service?

a) less than 100 people d) 401-500 people
D) 101-200 people e) 501-1 .000 people
c) 201-400people i) over1.000peopie

25. is your church located In a:
a) rural area b) suburban area c) cky area
26. What Is the population In the village. town. or city in which the crunch Is located?

a) under500 i) 15.001-20.000
b) 5014.000 9) 20.001-50.000
c) 1.001-5.000 h) 50.001-100.000
d) 5.001-10.000 0 over 100.000
e) 10.001-15.000

 

 

103

SECTION II
Dyadic Adjustment Scale

Most persons have disagreements in their relationships. Please hdlcsle below the approximate extent oi agreement or
disagreement between you and your partner tor each item on the iollowing list.

Almost Ocea- Fre- Akaest
Ahveye sisrtaly queasy Always Always

Ahveys
M00 was fissures Disagree Disagree [league

1. Handling lamiiy ilnances 5 4 3 2 1 0
2. Matters oi recreation 5 4 3 2 1 0
3. Religious matters 5 4 3 2 1 o
4. Demonstrations ol allection 5 4 3 2 1 0
5. Friends 5 4 3 2 1 o
6. Sex relatiom 5 4 3 2 1 o
7. Conventionaly

(correct or proper behavior) 5 4 3 2 1 0
8. Philosophy oi lite 5 4 3 2 1 o
9. Ways oi dealing with ‘

parents or Iii-laws 5 4 3 2 1 o
10. Aims. goals. and things

believed inportant 5 4 3 2 1 o
11. Amount oi tints spent togeer 5 4 3 2 1 0
12. Making major decisions 5 4 3 ‘ 2 1 o
13. Household tasks 5 4 3 2 1 0
14. Leisure time irisrests and activities 5 4 3 2 1 0
15. Career decisions 5 4 3 2 1 0

Here
as last at attest Osce-
the time are due Ills net sienely Rarely Never

16. Howoltendoyoudiscussorhavs

you considered divorce. separation.

or terminating your relationshb? 0 1 2 3 4 5
17. Howoliendo you oryourmate

leave the house alter a lion? 0 1 2 3 4 5
16. In general. how olIen do you think

that things between you and your

partner are going wel? 5 4 3 2 1 0

 

104

Mare
AI lease! on. Oeu-
atetime Insane start net slanaly Rarely Never
19. Do you contide in your mate? 5 4 3 2 1 0
20. Do you ever regret that you
married? (or lived together) 0 1 2 3 4 S
21. Howoitendoyouandyour
partnerquarrel? 0 1 2 3 4 5
22. Howoitendoyouandyourmate
'get on each others nerves?‘ 0 1 2 3 4 5
Almost Ocea-
-Ev¢y0ey Every Day steady Rarely Never
23. Do you kiss your mate? 4 3 2 1 0
Mel Hooter sot-oer Veryisw Non-or
are. theta stem ailhem an.
24. Doyouandyourmateengage
In outside interests together? 4 3 2 1 0

How olten would you say the Iollowing events occur between you and your mate?

Lessor-I Orteear Oriaear

once a hates a halos a Once a Ilere

Never loath past. week day on...
25.Have a stlrmlatlng exchange oi ideas 0 1 2 3 4 5
26.Laugh together 0 1 2 a 4 s
27.Calmiy discuss something 0 1 2 3 4 5
28Work together on a project 0 1 2 3 4 5

These are some things about which couples sometimes agree and sometime disagree. Indicate it either hem below
caused diilerences oi opinions or were problems in your relationsh'p during the past iew weeks. (Check yes or no)

Yes No
29. 0 1 Being too tired lor sex.
30. 0 1 Not showing love.

31. The dots onthe iollowlng line representdlilersntdegreesoihappirwss in yourrelatlonshb. The middle point.
‘happy.’ represents the degree oi happiness ol most relationships. Please circle the dot which best describes the

degree oi happiness. al things considered. oi your relationshb.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Extremely rainy a Little lhppy vi... Eaaaraaiy M...
W imam W Hum Ham

 

105

32. Which ol the lollowing staternents best describes how you ieel about the tutors oi your relationship? Circle one.

O-‘NU‘UI

Iwantdesperatelylormyrelationshiptosuccssd.andeouldgoroahtostanylengthtoseethatisdoes.
Iwant veryrnuchlormy relationshipto succeed. and wiildoailican toseethat'tdoes.

lwantvery nuchiormy relationship to succeed. and wildomyiar'rshareto see that ldoes.

ltwouidbe nicelmy relationshipsucceeded.buticantdonudtmore thanlamdoingnowto hebksucceed.
ltwouidbsnicelltsucceeded.butlrehrsetodoanymorethanlamdoingnowtokeepthe relationshipgoing.
My relationshbcannever succeed. and theret'srtomorethaticandoto keep the reiationshb going.

Go on to the next page -)

 

106

SECTION ill

The statements listed below descrbe attitudes toward the roles oi women in society which dilierent people have. There
are no right orwrong answers. onlyoplnlons. You areaskedto expressyourieel‘ngabout each statement by indicating
whether you (A) agree strongly. (8) agree mildly. (C) disagree mildly. or (0) disagree strongly

(A) (B) (C) (0)
Agree Agree Disagree Disagree
strongly mildly mildly strongly

1. Swnringandobscenityaremorerepulsiveinthespeechoiawomanthanaman.
A 8 C D

2. Under modem economic conditions with women being active outside the home. men should share in household tasks
suchaswashing dishesanddolngthe laundry.

A B C D
a. itlsinsuhmgtowomentohavetlw'obey'dausenmminthsmarflageuwlcs.
A 8 C D
4. Awomenshouldbessireeasamantoproposemarrtage.
A B .C D
5. Women should worry iessabouttheirrightsand more about becominggoodwivesandmothers.
A B C D
6. Women should assume their rightluiplaceinbuslnessandaltheproiessionsabmwith men.
A 8 C D
7. Awomanshouidnotexpecttogotoexactlythesameplacesortohavequsthesameireedomoiactionasaman.
A 8 C D
6. itlsridtculousiorawomantorunalocomotiveandioramantodamsocks.
A 8 c D
9. Theinteliectualleadershboiacorrmnityshouldbelargelyinthehandsolmsn.
A B C D
10. Women shouldbegiven equalopportunitywithmeniorapprenticeshblnthevarioustrades.
A 8 C D
11.Womenearningasnuchastheirdatesshouldbearequallytheexpensewhenthsygoouttogether.
A B C D

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

107

(A) (B) (C) (D)
Agree Agree Disagree Disagree
strongly mildly mildly strongly

Sons h a iarnlly should be given more encouragement to go to college than daughters.
A B C D

In general. the lather should have greater authority than the mother in the bringing up oi children.
A B C D

Economicendsocialireedomiswonhlarmorethanacosptancsoithsidealotlemlninitywhichhasbeensetupby
men.

A B C D
There are many jobs in which men should be given preterence overwomen in being hired or promoted.
A B C D
Doyoubelievektthsordinatlonoiwomen? Clrcleyouranswer.
Yes No

0 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acock, A.C., & Edwards, J.N. (1982). Egalitarian sex—role
attitudes and female income. Journol_of_Morriooo_ond_the
Eamil¥,.AA, 581-589.

Aldous, J. (1983). Problematic elements in the relationships
between churches and families. In W.V. D’Antonio & J.

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