「新好男人」、「新好女人」？當代華人婚姻關係中的角色義務

“Good New Men＂ and “Good New Women＂? Role Obligations in Contemporary Chinese Marital Relationship

隨著時代的演進，多元的性別觀念反映在現代社會的婚姻關係中，夫妻的角色已經不再是傳統的「男主外，女主內」，最近引發社會熱烈討論的是「新好男人」與「新好女人」的說法。本研究從社會表徵的理論觀點出發，探討現代台灣社會婚姻關係中夫妻角色義務之內涵。在第一階段的前導研究中，以開放式問卷徵詢47位20歲以上之成年人，蒐集他們對夫妻關係中角色義務的看法，藉以編製「夫妻角色義務」量表，並進行夫妻角色義務的分類。後續之正式研究則探討成年人對丈夫及妻子角色義務之要求是否有差異，並釐清這些差異是否與研究參與者之性別與婚姻狀態有關。正式研究邀請367位成年人（20～50歲）填寫研究者自編之「夫妻角色義務」量表，結果發現：（1）當代台灣社會之成年人對夫妻角色義務的看法可以分為「經濟來源」、「關係經營」、「家務分工與財務管理」、「工作與家庭」及「代間關係」五個範疇。研究者並依「積極∕消極」與「強制∕非強制」等兩個面向將上述角色義務進行分類。（2）比較夫與妻角色義務之差異，研究參與者對丈夫之角色要求較高。（3）相較於男性，女性研究參與者對於夫妻之角色有較高的要求，而已婚者則只有在經濟、家人關係及和家族相關之角色義務的看法上與未婚者有差異。整體而言，現代夫妻角色義務不再是「男主外，女主內」，而是對外，夫妻皆有穩定工作；對內則要分擔家務，且要共同承擔教養子代的角色。相較於傳統的角色規範，「關係經營」是現代夫妻新增的角色義務。此外，「丈夫為主要的經濟來源」及「妻子應該與公婆和平相處」則是從傳統到現代都不變的核心義務。

Gender roles are becoming more pluralistic in modern Taiwan. The traditional notion that men are the breadwinners and women are the housekeepers is no longer the norm. The gender (marital) roles of the “good new men” and “good new women” are frequent topics of discussion. We apply the theoretical perspective of social representation to explore the content and degree of compulsiveness of husbands’ and wives’ roles in contemporary Taiwanese society. In the first phase of the study, we asked 47 adults to write their views of a husband’s and a wife’s role obligations. Items in the role obligation lists were used to construct a role obligations scale. Subsequent analyses examined whether there were differences in terms of the degree to which a given role is perceived as obligatory as a husband or a wife, and to clarify whether these differences were related to the gender or marital status of the participant. A total of 367 adults (20-50 years old) completed the scale. Results showed that: (1) marital role obligations can be classified into 5 categories: economic resources, relationship management, household work and financial management, work and family issues, and intergenerational relations. The items varied in terms of their degree of compulsiveness. (2) The participants thought that the husband’s role obligations were more compulsive than the wife’s role. (3) Compared to men, women had higher requirements for each role category, while married adults only differed from unmarried adults in terms of the economic resource and intergenerational relation role obligations. Overall, the new norms are for both the husband and the wife to hold a stable job, and to jointly share the household chores and parenting roles. Relationship maintenance is a new obligation category. The expectation that husbands should be the main source of family income and wives should maintain a harmonious relationship with parents-in-law are core obligations that remain unchanged from traditional times.