A liberal feminist, Jessie Bernard, sees the role of housewife as the key factor in limiting the potential of women. Bernard believes that marriage is particularly beneficial for men as they are more likely than single men to have successful careers, high incomes and high status occupations. However, wives are found to express marital dissatisfaction more frequently than men, since they gain least. Margaret Benston, a Marxist feminist, states that the amount of unpaid labour performed by women is very profitable to those who own the means of production. To pay for women even at minimum wage scales, would involve a massive redistribution of wealth. At present the support of the family is a hidden tax on the wage earner, his wage buy the labour power of two people. In addition, the man is less likely to withdraw his labour power with a wife and children to support. Not only does the family produce and rear cheap labour, it also maintains it at no cost to the employer. The woman as housewife tends to her husbands needs keeping him in good working order to perform his role as wage labourer. Radical feminists such as Dobash and Dobash, found through their studies that although both partners feel that marriage allows them to make some demands upon the other, there is considerable difference in their abilities to achieve their own ends when there is disagreement. The woman is almost never in a position to coerce him by physical means and has never learned the techniques of violence nor been taught to think in terms of physical control. They therefore believe that the family is not symmetrical as Wilmott & young may suggest, as there are inequalities in the power relations, and they also see the family as a key institution in perpetuating women's oppression, and that given the risk of male violence they would be better off alone. Fran Ansley, a Marxist feminist, like Parsons, believes that the emotional support provided by the wife acts as a safety valve for the frustration produced in the husband by working in the capitalist system.
