Elizabeth Bott's conjugal roles (1975)

Elizabeth Bott's Family and Social Network (1957) has stimulated much research in the area of kinship networks and network analysis in general. Her hypotheses have been tested and criticized, refined and modified. And still they remain provocative and controversial.
A conjugal role describes the positions and tasks typically taken up by husband and wife or cohabiting partners in the family. It has been argued that these roles are becoming increasingly joint in relation to the family. Elizabeth Bott (1957) distinguishes between two polar types of conjugal role relationship, segregated and joint. Segregated in a sense that men and women have clear differentiation in tasks, interests and activities. Botts study suggests that there is a basic division of labour in which the man is responsible for supporting the family financially and the women performs the housework and childcare. However according to Bott joint relationships are in existence, however this depends on the class and background that the couples have each come from, joint relationships is when there is a minimum of tasks differentiation and separation of interests.