Something Old, Something New: Marital Roles and Relations in State Socialist Romania

Utilizing socialist legislation, propaganda, and oral history interviews with urban women and men, this article explores how marital roles were refashioned in socialist Romania. Although the image of the idle husband and overburdened wife was perhaps more typical than not, family roles did undergo change over the course of socialist rule, evident in men's participation in household duties from food procurement to childcare. While related to women's increased economic autonomy and assertiveness within the home and the promotion of egalitarian family models, these changes were also rooted in the misapplication of socialist theory. Thus, the demands of labor force participation, combined with state failure to fully socialize childcare and substantially improve the material conditions of its subjects in some cases inadvertently fostered more equitable marital relations. By analyzing the diversity and fluidity of marital relations as well as the active engagement of women and men in reinforcing, challenging, or renegotiating family roles the article moves beyond the domineering husband/oppressed wife dichotomy toward a more nuanced understanding of marriage under state socialism.