The paper examines gendered experiences of established adulthood with reference to role-related responsibilities in urban Indian families. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 married adults aged between 35 and 45 years, from educated, high socioeconomic class families of Vadodara, India. The aim was to examine participants’ reasoning about similarities and differences in potentials of men and women; and gender differences in responsibilities. Qualitative analyses revealed that both men and women attributed equal potentials for both genders, in fulfilling a range of adult roles within and outside the family. All participants also agreed that even if responsibilities were ‘shared’, women’s involvement in different roles was much more intense than men’s. Women were critical of patriarchal norms that hindered participation in the workforce and led to role overload. However, they navigated diverse roles with increased efficiency and multitasking. Men, on the other hand, showed passive acceptance and reinforced traditional gender norms in spite of complete awareness of demands generated from a rapidly changing socioeconomic milieu. However, in what may seem like a push and pull between the two genders, decisions of balancing work and family were always contextualized and embedded in an ethos of maintaining strong social and familial networks, indicating a clear preference for doing what was in everyone’s best interest. Overall, results suggested that navigating traditional gender role expectations in marriage and parenthood, without compromising social and familial harmony, was a significant cultural marker of maturity in established adulthood in India.

本文参照印度城市家庭中与角色相关的责任，考察了成年后的性别经历。对来自印度巴罗达受过教育的高社会经济阶层家庭的 30 名 35 至 45 岁的已婚成年人进行了深入访谈。目的是检查参与者对男性和女性潜力异同的推理；以及职责上的性别差异。定性分析表明，男性和女性在履行家庭内外的一系列成人角色时，都认为两性具有同等潜力。所有参与者还一致认为，即使责任是“分担的”，女性对不同角色的参与也比男性更加激烈。女性对阻碍参与劳动力并导致角色超负荷的父权制规范持批评态度。然而，他们以更高的效率和多任务处理来驾驭不同的角色。另一方面，男性表现出被动接受并强化了传统的性别规范，尽管他们完全意识到快速变化的社会经济环境所产生的需求。然而，在两性之间看似推拉的情况下，平衡工作和家庭的决定总是被情境化，并植根于维持强大的社会和家庭网络的精神中，这表明他们明显倾向于做符合每个人最大利益的事情. 总体而言，结果表明，在不损害社会和家庭和谐的情况下，驾驭传统的婚姻和父母性别角色期望，