ABSTRACT
Until very recently a one-role ideology for women prevailed everywhere. In 1938, 90 per cent of a sample of men said married women should not work, and 88 per cent of a sample of women agreed that married women should give up their jobs if their husbands wanted them to. Women, it was taken for granted, were still exclusively responsible for child rearing. All that policy could do was helping overcome the artifical difficulties entailed in carrying out this function. The deteriorating effect of housework as an occupation on the mentality of women has been commented on for almost a century. Benefits to women are rarely emphasized in any proposals for legislation on child care. Although married women report their marriages as happy to about the same extent as married men, when studied in a different context, more married than unmarried women are reported to be depressed, phobic, passive, and troubled by psychosomatic symptoms.
