Gender roles are social expectations that dictate how each gender is to speak, think, act, and engage with each other. The stereotypical husband were supposed to go to work and support the family financially. The stereotypical wife was supposed to tend to the household and children. Gender roles in a marriage once played an important role, as time went on less and less people stopped caring about what a wife should do and what a husband should do. Not every couple was like this though, Garp and Helen were a perfect example of a couple not following gender roles in their marriage. Garp and Helen never really had a normal relationship from the start, they did not know much about one another before they got married. They never did the usual couple …show more content…
The two would of been a mess. Garp is the nurturing, motherly one who shows his feelings while Helen tries to not show her feelings or what she is thinking. I don’t think they would have lasted as long if they were a traditional married couple. Helen was too driven on being a teacher and having a career to stay home with the kids. Helen would have been miserable if she got stuck doing that, she didn’t mind if she had kids or not. Garp is the one who wanted them, she told Garp he had to take care of them and he agreed. Garp needed to be a writer in order for Helen to agree to marry him, so he would of had to stay home anyway. Garp didn’t make enough being a writer to begin with, they would have been struggling financially or still mooching off of his mother. He also was not focused purely on his writing, he was too overprotective and would not have stopped worrying long enough to finish his work. They all would have been miserable.
Gender roles played an important part in marriage at one point, as time went on less people stopped valuing it. Women were expected to take care of the kids and household while men were expected to support their families financially. This did not work for every couple however. Garp and Helen would have never survived if they stuck to