Marital Monogamy as Ideal and Practice: The Detraditionalization Thesis in Contemporary Marriages

• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12277

A I G  J V University of Toronto

B A University of Windsor∗

Marital Monogamy as Ideal and Practice: The

Detraditionalization Thesis in Contemporary

Marriages

Within the sociological literature on intimate

life, a detraditionalization thesis outlines a

marked shift in the construction of marriage in

post-World War II Western societies, suggest-

ing a growing focus on emotional and sexual

satisfaction within the marital dyad (Cherlin,

2004; Giddens, 1992). In this article the authors

investigated one aspect of marital relations in

light of the detraditionalization thesis: marital

monogamy. Drawing from 90 in-depth inter-

views with both heterosexual and same-sex

married participants in Canada, they found that

the detraditionalization thesis appears to cap-

ture best the extension of multicultural norms to

abstract ideals about marital monogamy, rather

than an actual shift in marital sexual practices,

particularly among heterosexual respondents.

These data call out for greater attention to both

University of Toronto,Department of Sociology, 725

Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2J4

(AdamIsaiah.Green@utoronto.ca)

∗Department of Sociology, Anthropology,and

Criminology, Chrysler Hall South, Universityof Windsor,

Windsor, Ontario, Canada, N9B 3P4.

This article was edited by Kevin M. Roy.

Adam Isaiah Green and Jenna Vallerianicontributed

equally to this article.

Key Words: family structure, marital sex, relationship

processes, sexuality.

the social mediation of Giddens’s detradition-

alization thesis and a more nuanced concept

of marital delity than a simple binary axis of

“monogamous/nonmonogamous” permits.

In contemporary Western society, changing

norms around marital monogamy represent one

possible element of a broader transformation

in the institution of marriage. To capture these

transformations, many scholars over the past

three decades have drawn upon a detradition-

alization thesis that details a marked shift in

the way marriage is constructed in Western

societies following World War II. This body of

research suggests a growing focus on individual

satisfaction and mutually fullling partnerships

as the foundation of contemporary marital

forms (Cherlin, 2004; Giddens, 1992; Gross,

2005). Such shifts in the construction of mar-

riage have been attributed to a range of factors,

including advances in reproductive technologies

(Giddens, 1992), the late modern process of

individualization (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim,

1995, 2002), and as an outcome of social move-

ments (Castells, 1997). Further, historical shifts

in political economy, perhaps most importantly

women’s mass entry into the labor market, are

believed to have brought about fundamental

challenges to the traditional nuclear family,

including the distribution of domestic labor and

bifurcated gender roles associated with male

416 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (April 2016): 416–430

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12277