Sex roles within cohabiting relationships

At the outset the following question was raised: "Does the domestic division of labor and the pattern of decision making among unconventional male-female arrangements correspondingly exhibit patterns that equally depart from those found among conventional marital arrangements?" Data presented above on couples involved in three types of relational structures or marital types suggests a tentative answer of "No" to this question. Of course, the usual cautionary question must be noted, namely the representativeness of the sample. Perhaps the finding that quasi-conventional couples and living together couples are no less conventional than other couples should come as no surprise. Under the assumption that all respondents in varying degrees acquired traditional attitudes about male-female interaction, one would expect that such attitudes would begin to surface within the confines of a close and continuous intimate relationship. Furthermore, it is certainly no novel idea to acknowledge that one might be intellectually liberated but emotionally chained to custom.