The Sociology Book

314 CHRISTINE DELPHY

The marriage contract is a work contract.

Within a patriarchal system, heterosexuality is a

socially constructed institution that encourages marriage.

Marriage enables the husband, as head of the household,

to exploit his wife, by benefitting from her unpaid labor...

...around

the home.

...in support

of his job.

...in producing

and looking

after children

(his legitimate

heirs).

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Material feminism

KEY DATES

1974 British sociologist Ann

Oakley puts housework under

feminist scrutiny in The

Sociology of Housework.

1980 US writer and feminist

Adrienne Rich suggests that

heterosexuality is a political

institution that continues to

give men power and control

over women.

1986 According to British

sociologist Sylvia Walby,

the gender division of labor

in the household is one of the

key structures that maintain

patriarchy in society.

1989 French materialist

feminist Monique Wittig

publishes On the Social

Contract, suggesting that

the heterosexual contract is

a sexual and labor contract.

F

or hundreds of years in
many societies, marriage
has been the destiny and
often the dream of every young girl.
Numerous cultural arteficts—from
fairy tales to novels and films—
have reinforced this view. However,
in the 1980s, feminists such as
Ann Oakley and Christine Delphy
argued that, in reality, marriage is
a highly abusive institution that
is fundamental in aiding men’s
continuing oppression of women.
Christine Delphy is a Marxist
theorist, who claims that the only
way to investigate oppression of

any sort is through a Marxist-style

analysis that looks at the material

benefits accruing to any party.

But where Marx investigated

oppression through examining

class structure, Delphy investigates

women’s oppression through the

power structure of patriarchy (the

power and authority held by men).

She says that within a patriarchal

system, heterosexuality (and the

resulting male–female couple) is not

an individual sexual preference but

a socially constructed institution,

which acts to maintain male

domination. This is demonstrated,

she argues, in the way that women

are channeled into marriage and

motherhood, so that their labor can

be exploited by men.

Domestic production

Delphy argues that Marx’s

concepts can be applied to the

home environment, which she sees

as a site of the patriarchal mode of

production. Within this workplace,

men systematically take advantage

of, and benefit from, women’s labor.

Under these conditions, women

labor for the male head

of the household, carrying out