ENTITLEMENT, OBLIGATION, AND GRATITUDE IN FAMILY WORK

This article explores how feelings of entitlement, obligation, and gra titude affect family work. Exploratory interviews suggested that memor ies of past events, including extramarital affairs, created expectatio ns and referents that influenced subsequent divisions of household lab or. Using regression analysis of survey data from a random sample of 1 93 remarried individuals, hypotheses about the division of labor deriv ed from human capital and social structural theories were tested along with the hypothesis that past affairs would influence the allocation of household tasks. More sharing of household labor was associated wit h husbands being employed fewer hours and holding egalitarian attitude s, and wives being employed longer, earning more, and holding conventi onal attitudes. Husbands' previous extramarital affairs were associate d with less sharing. Drawing on gender theory, the authors suggest tha t past experiences, situational constraints, and patterns of inequalit y in the larger society influence marital economies of gratitude, whic h, in turn, shape the allocation of household labor.