Society’s Influence on Relationship
by It’s based on my view on how society has always influence relationships and how has gender role has change with much defficult and confusion for some people.
Theme: The Impact of Social Change
Article Title: Society’s Influence on Relationships:
The world in which couples form and live out their relationships is different for each generation. Changes in society over the past four decades have forced us to change the way we think about values and expectations.
In general, couples today enter their relationships expecting to find greater emotional and sexual intimacy, greater equality between the sexes, and greater tolerance of differences. But rising divorce statistics reflect a picture of relationships that does not match up to these expectations.
Why should that be so? Alongside the positive changes in society there have been a variety of mystifying and often distressing changes, many of which have occurred so rapidly that some people have been caught off-guard and have had difficulty coping.
Changes in the job market affect people at all life stages. Many young adults cannot find suitable employment and affordable housing, and therefore must remain in their parents’ home at a time when they may be seeking to establish independence, as well their own relationships (family). At the same time, their parents may be looking forward to their own personal and financial freedom, or may themselves be going through major life changes.
For many families, the need for two incomes means that both partners carry a double load: family obligations, as well as outside employment. Early retirement is becoming more common, while other people are losing their jobs through no fault of their own. People in either situation are often quite unprepared for the financial or emotional transition. There is an atmosphere of insecurity and instability everywhere in society, making it difficult for people to know how to protect themselves or their families.
Meanwhile, the media actively promotes the impression that material possessions are not only attainable, but essential, and that marriage and family life are relatively happy and conflict-free. This can and has created enormous pressures for families who find their expectations are not met. In all these instances, economic stress results in emotional stress, which takes its toll on relationships often time then not.
Economic and social forces have also led to dramatic changes in gender roles. Changing ideas of the roles of men and women in society have led to the promise of greater freedom and fulfilment for both sexes. However, changing gender roles have also led to confusion and frustration.
As mentioned above, both partners in a relationship often have to work outside the home in addition to sharing household and parenting responsibilities. While this offers a varied and potentially more rewarding existence, it is also a dramatic departure from traditional gender roles and can add to relationship stress – particularly if the partners’ willingness or ability to adapt to their expanded roles is unequal.
Often, the gender roles we learned when we were young are quite different from the roles demanded by our adult relationships. Each individual and each couple has to work out how to adjust to the discrepancy. For some, the lack of fit between their cultural and religious ideals of family life and the day-to-day demands of contemporary life can be an additional source of stress.
Relationships cannot be separated from the society. Society will always influence the relationships’ foundation. We as people have influences today as it had yesterday and as we will tomorrow upon relationship establishment.
We have observed and we have grown within the system of family establishment relations that is prevalent in our communities. Many of us today (youth of modern-days) have never sat down to think about the influence of the societal ideals and culture on our views on the family. Somehow we have accepted the practice and views of people around us as the ideal. We have tried to pattern our families and marriages after the dictates of the society. Those of us who have gone to school to school have been affected by the philosophy of the writer too.
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