“Write short note: Emerging pattern of sex roles in modern society.” (2001)
Sex roles are the socially expected behaviours, duties and rights attached to being male or female. Ann Oakley (Sex, Gender and Society, 1972) insisted that these roles are gender constructions, not biological givens. In classical modern sociology they were fixed and complementary. Today they are becoming negotiated, overlapping and plural, though unevenly.
The traditional model
- Talcott Parsons (1955) assigned the husband an instrumental role (breadwinning, authority) and the wife an expressive role (care, emotional support) within the nuclear family.
- Elizabeth Bott (Family and Social Network, 1957) found segregated conjugal roles among couples embedded in dense kin networks.
- In India, patrilineal, patrilocal kinship defined the wife as a transferable dependant and the son as heir and ritual successor.
Emerging patterns
- Joint and symmetrical roles: Bott found joint conjugal roles in loosely knit networks. Michael Young and Peter Willmott (The Symmetrical Family, 1973) predicted converging roles as wives entered paid work.
- Dual-earner and dual-career families: Rhona and Robert Rapoport (Dual-Career Families, 1971) studied couples who both pursue careers. In India, Promilla Kapur (Marriage and the Working Woman in India, 1970) found such change accompanied by role conflict.
- Negotiated intimacy: Anthony Giddens (The Transformation of Intimacy, 1992) describes the “pure relationship”, sustained by mutual satisfaction rather than prescribed roles. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (The Normal Chaos of Love, 1990) argue that individualisation turns every role into a matter for negotiation.
- Changing masculinities: R. W. Connell (Masculinities, 1995) showed that hegemonic masculinity is contested. “Involved fatherhood” and paternity leave (15 days for Indian central government employees) signal men’s partial entry into care.
- Beyond the binary: Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) saw gender as performative. In India, NALSA v. Union of India (2014) recognised a third gender, Navtej Singh Johar (2018) decriminalised same-sex relations, and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 followed.
- Women’s new kinship roles: Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) confirmed daughters as coparceners by birth under the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005. Daughters increasingly care for ageing parents and even perform last rites.
Persistence alongside change
- Arlie Hochschild (The Second Shift, 1989) called the transformation a “stalled revolution”: employed women still do most of the housework.
- In India, the Time Use Survey 2024 records 289 minutes a day of unpaid domestic work by women against 88 by men. NFHS-5 (2019-21) found 23.3% of women aged 20–24 married before 18.
- Change is concentrated among the urban, educated middle class. Caste and community norms still police women’s mobility and marriage choices.
Conclusion
Sex roles in modern society are moving from ascribed complementarity towards achieved and negotiated equality, but ideology changes faster than practice. The emerging pattern is best described as transitional: formal equality in law and education coexists with persistent inequality in care, a gap that will shape family and kinship in the coming decades.