‘We treat each other as equal partners’ the understanding of companionate marriage in postwar Poland

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to describe a model of companionate marriage developed in postwar Poland. It traces the evolution of ideas around marriage and gender roles from the interwar to the postwar period. The paper focuses on popular understandings of gender and marriage, and takes advantage of a collection of original personal narratives written in the 1960s. A comparison between memoirs written by authors married in the interwar and postwar period reveals that understandings of gender roles and relations between husband and wife changed. The postwar period saw the emergence of a new ideal of marriage, based on sharing and equality. To describe this new model, the author draws on the concept of companionate marriage. The paper discusses the features of companionship in postwar state-socialist Poland, in order to connect the debate on marital relations under state socialism to broader discussion on the modernization of marriage in postwar Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender roles
• postwar Poland
• personal narratives
• companionate marriage

Disclosure statement

The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1. MZ 10389.

2. Pamiętnik nr 27 In Pamiętniki bezrobotnych.

3. Archive of Modern Records in Warsaw (Archiwum Akt Nowych), Society for Polish Memoir (Towarzystwo Pamiętnikarstwa Polskiego, TPP), Husband and Wife (Mąż i Żona) 10395. As all archival material quoted in this paper comes from the collection of TPP, further references do not repeat the name of the archive and collection. I only provide abbreviation of the title of the contest (MS for Młodzi po ślubie/Young Marriage, MZ for Mąż i Żona/Husband and Wife, and JR for Jaka jesteś, rodzino? (What are you like, family?), and the file number.

4. MZ 10392.

5. MZ 10396.

6. Pamiętniki bezrobotnych.

7. Pamiętnik nr 11. In Pamiętniki bezrobotnych.

8. MZ 10389.

9. MZ 10391.

10. MZ 10383.

11. MZ 10388.

12. MZ 10379.

13. MS 10608.

14. MS 10617.

15. MS 10607.

16. MS 10604.

17. MZ 10396.

18. MZ 10394.

19. MM 9938.

20. MZ 10394.

21. MZ 10393.

22. MS 10605.

23. MZ 10394.

24. MZ 10394.

25. MS 10618.

26. For example, MS 10608.

27. MZ 10379.

28. JR 9877.

29. MS 10622.

30. MZ 10379.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by of the National Science Centre, Poland, under Grant 2016/21/D/HS3/02739