“Unisex Marriages” Predicted

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32222, 14 February 1970, Page 2

“Unisex Marriages” Predicted

(By

CAROLE LYDERS)

LONDON. Unisex clothe s—fashions to be worn by both s e x e s—are very I much a part of the London fashion scene. Now Mr Peter Willmot, director of the Institute of Community Studies in London, predicts that before long there will be “unisex marriages.” jThis means that husbands will think nothing of doing the women’s work and vice versa.

The father will be cook, washer-up and nappy-changer while his wife will go off to the office. Mr Willmot said that already the old distinctions between men and women’s jobs were becoming increasingly blurred and sex barriers were crumbling in other areas, too. “In dress and hair-styles the sexes are more alike than they have been in the past. Men now spend more than women on perfumed preparations and boys and girls are given ‘ambisexual’ names,” he said. In the next few decades this trend would be felt in marriages. No longer would husbands go off for long hours at work, leaving their wives at home to look after the children. Dual Careers Instead, there would be more dual-career couples with both going out to work. He contends that it is un-

i likely that couples would re-1 I turn to large families, which; keep women tied to the home: | until well into middle-age. j i At home, too, there would ' Ibe much more sharing of chores. Husbands would spend more time On tasks such as cooking, washing-up and looking after the -babies, while wives would do their share of painting, mowing the lawn and washing the car. Mr Willmot said that this would happen to most people, for marriage was not a i vanishing institution. “On present evidence it! looks as if, in the coming de-! cades, the overwhelming ■ majority of people will get! married.” More would divorce I but most would remarry, he added. Well, it is always interest-! ing to hear opinions of theexperts, but one wonders if! Mr Willmot is a little out of i date with “unisex marriages.”, Most married couples already inter-change domestic I jobs. Only they do not label 1 it “unisex”—they call it mutual co-operation.