Traditional Husband and Wife Role Compared to Today - Essay Example

Traditional husband and wife role compared to today. The traditional husband-wide relationship was one of friendship, mutual respect, and understanding. Today the situation is far removed from what it was. The TV shows are meant to make the common person conscious of what an ideal relationship should be. A family comprises of children too and they adopt what they see and experience in their childhood. Each of the four TV shows, I love Lucy, The Simpsons, Leave it to Beaver and The Cosby Show have messages for humanity. In I love Lucy, Lucy is a loving but a naive and ambitious housewife, who always gets herself in trouble. She is keen to join her husband in show business. It is full of images of a typical marriage and a family. A marriage could be saved from disintegration but this is possible only when both sides are willing to adjust. Today neither wishes to compromise. Lucy has desires to be something more than a housewife, which is in sharp contrast to what her husband Ricky felt. To him such desires in a woman are unseemly. Lucy constantly rebels against confinement at home as a housewife, engaged in mundane household chores like cooking and cleaning, financial dependency on the husband. She keeps rebelling through various means like taking a job, or coming up with moneymaking schemes but her efforts are all thwarted. Her public exposure forces her to retreat her steps and return as the housewife. Each episode teaches Lucy and thereby the viewers not to question the social order where the man rules. The birth of little Ricky also shows adjustment to parenthood and the values that are necessary for a child. Finally, they leave the city and move to the countryside. This was in 1950s. The Simpsons was the greatest animated series of the 1990s. Homer describes his family as the upper lower middle class. They live in a four-bedroom house and he is constantly in and out of employment, which directly affects the life at home. His wife Marge is a stay-at-home mom. The family is out of date and this reflects through various things like the color of the car was popular in the 1960s, the cars that they owned were of 1970 model and they purchase a computer much beyond the world had become familiar with internet. Homer is thoughtless and irresponsible but he always stands by his family whenever they require him; Marge tries her best to compensate for her husband’s shortcomings. This show portrays a traditional nuclear family. Small extra-marital affairs do take place but at the end the marriage of Homer and Marge is firmly affirmed. Marge too like Lucy attempts to escape the monotony of being a housekeeper and tries to get herself a job or engage in some hobby. It is a traditional family in the sense that they always go together for outings. They have their dinner together. In the mornings like a traditional home, Marge prepares the breakfast and the children and Homer have their breakfast before leaving for work or school. All episodes start with such scenes, which give the impression of a traditional low profile family of that era. There are also moments like all husbands want to do, when Homer escapes the work and family to spend time with his friends at Moe’s Tavern. They sit and watch the Television programs together. The Cosby Show focused on the Huxtable family, an upper middle class family. They were an utterly typical traditional American sitcom family where the father is a gynecologist and the mother an attorney. The usual difficulties that any household faces with growing children have been very efficiently projected. Healthcliff is portrayed as a strong father figure, as was the tradition in those days. Theirs is a happy nuclear family and despite both parents being professionals, the home and the children are not neglected. In Leave it to Beaver, June, just like Marge in The Simpsons, is always cleaning or cooking or taking care of the family. Ward is wise and understanding and lives peacefully with June through their married life. Hey had mutual respect for each, an essential element for the success of any marriage. If June suggested something for the children and Ward had no better option he always accepted her ideas. The majority of the problems were resolved without any differences of opinion between them. June always identified the problems as she was always at home. She naturally had access to the children’s personal belongings while cleaning their room of their drawers. Apart from this, she had the intuitive power like most women have especially when it concerns their children. Ward or men only realize of a problem when they are directly confronted with any problem. The few occasions when they did have difference of opinion, they resolved it in a calm and rational manner through discussions. Most marriages today provide no scope for any rationale, as both believe they are right. When Beaver leaves home, June was devastated but Ward refused to move from his stand. When Ward realized his mistake he accepted it. June did not show any feeling of superiority, which is something unimaginable today in any marriage. Rather they showed that parents can reach a consensus in the bringing up of the child, despite agreements and heated discussions, and both have an equal say in it. A man’s role in the family as it was, is use to provide discipline in the form of fatherly advice. June never interfered in the type of punishment meted out. If wives start doing this then there can never be an amicable settlement and the children are the worst sufferers. The message here is to maintain harmony in interpersonal relationships. We find from all the four TV shows that the patriarchal system was the pattern followed in the society. The man had the authority and was always respected for his intelligence. In one instance, in The Simpsons, Marge compensates for her husband’s shortcomings, which is out of the question in today’s world. The women always cooked and looked after the family which was her traditional role. In two of the shows, I love Lucy and The Simpsons, Lucy and Marge do show inclination to go beyond the domestic chores, finally they settle down in their respective roles as housewives. This acceptance and adjustment cannot be expected today. Now the women exert equal rights and demand a say in every decision. In fact, the discord and disharmony prevalent in the society is because the traditional roles are not given any importance. The children are neglected; it affects their adult life as well which today the parents do not seem to understand. Even if they do, they are more concerned with their own lives. The messages that such shows convey are that mutual respect and harmony are essential for a happy nuclear family. The love and understanding between the husband and wife have a very significant role in the harmony of the family. The children can feel and are affected when parents are fight. They need and authoritative father and a loving mother who is always around. The formative years of a child are the most important and these leave a long lasting impression on the tender minds. Man’s ego has to be satisfied; he needs to feel that he is the boss. If the traditional family system could be maintained we would not see so many divorces. Children too would not take to drugs and drinking out of frustration. Shows like these do awaken at least a few people and perhaps the society does benefit after all. Read More