The aim of the present study was to identify elements of social representations of marriage, husband and wife, present in popular song lyrics recorded during the 1940s and 1950s. Three hundred and six song lyrics were selected from private record collections. The Alceste software was used for data analysis, which pointed towards the existence of four classes that represent different forms of speech about conjugal relations, gender roles in marriage and elements of social representation. Classes 1, 3 and 4 constituted a subgroup that can be considered as an axis in the organization of social representations about marriage, husband, and wife. This subgroup was called Female and Male Role in Marriage: real versus ideal. It is characterized by predominantly male discourse on aspects of conjugal everyday life, indicating the ideal wife and the inadequate one, with the husband being pictured as the worker/financial provider. Class 2 consists of another thematic axis, whose contents cover partner disenchantment and separation. The results exemplify the participation of social, historical, and cultural factors in the construction of the real organization/arrangement with which conjugal relations are lived, and how such relations are guided and justified by flexible social representations associated with the social contexts in which they were produced, consolidated, and/or transformed.
Marriage; Gender; Music; Social representation
