ABSTRACT
In our earlier work, we have tried to understand how couples manage to stay together in long-term marriages, now that feminism has promoted a greater awareness of women’s exploitation in marriage, and when there is a growing emphasis on the alternative pursuit of self-fulfilment in the ‘pure couple relationship’ (Giddens 1992; Rubin 1991). We have argued that it is mainly women who help to keep such marriages alive by doing ‘emotion work’ (Hochschild 1983) on themselves as well as on their husbands, to sustain the image that ‘we’re ever so happy, really’ (Duncombe and Marsden 1993, 1996a, 1996b).
