Power and Marriage: The Upper Hand

In marriage, partners devise and create all the time the line of power.  Who has it most?  Does it change the dynamics of the marriage? Does it change the identity of the individuals? So many thought and concepts about power within a relationship like marriage always leads to conflict whether is often or seldom.

In the early to mid 1800s, "The Cult of True Womenhood" was a highly defining concept about women who married. Piety, Purity, Submissiveness and Domesticity were the four virtues that husbands judged in their spouses to have and uphold always. Since it was the husband's job to provide and made sure his partner lived up to these "codes", this readily gave men power over their women, home and marriage.
During that time period, most women were accepting to live under these conditions because marriage was on their course of adulthood, until years later, revolutions occured where women changed their mindset and perspective of their roles.

Today the civil union of marriages has evolved over time where the equity of power isnt much relied on the man but women have stepped up and assume majority power within a marriage. In today's society, women are more outspoken, involved and assume primary positions in many aspects of power not only in marriage but life.

"The Powers of Intimate Companions" was a study conducted in China by Professor Xu Anqi. He observed how partners within marriage use power for household and family decisions. Types of power such as "orchestration power" which didnt consume time for decisions but affected the family orientation and "implementaion power" which was time-consuming for unimportant decisions.  From there, measurements such as indicators for households decisons e.g. everyday choices for money, affairs for the home, the weight of everday decisions for the household, major family decisions e.g. investments, loans, and "who" had the power were used . Anqi states that the cultural norms of a socioeconomic status in the marriage, either spouse would attain more power. In this case, it would be true because society does value the size of a paycheck for most power but other factors are included such as gender, culture, location etc. Results stated that men do hold most of the power in the household and marriage and this doesnt affect how labor is dispered, if women gained greater satisfaction if they had more power, but it proved how equality should be made between partners first so the household is more effective.

After reading this article, it seems that power is more rested within the spouses rather than spliting throughout the household. Marriage and household are two seperate entities that work hand and hand but if one isnt working then the other will falter.

References:
Anqi, Xu. "The Power of Intimate Companions: Probing the Mechanisms that Affect Sense of Gender Equality. Chinese Anthropology and Sociology. 2011. Vol 43. pg 24-51.
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Talk to Me Honey!

Jane and Joe James have been married for 15 yrs with two kids. In the the past two years their level of intimacy has decreased drastically. Small fights would turn into days of not speaking. Constant yelling and screaming which is slowly affecting their children, Sam and Mary has now put the question of divorced in the air.

Most couples who suffer from lack of communication resort to a means to an end when the relationship has ended. Couples dont realize that when they end things, it affects a group of people who surrounded  them. Communication is one the three components that is needed for any relationship to survive. Why is it that couples tend to drift from conversation when conversing got them to where they are? Problems that arise typically with conflicted relationships are money, the home, family, work etc.  One problem that probably doesnt seem obvious but attributes to alot is the women in the relationship. Men who want submissive wives and women who conform to that role will respond less to their spouses negative antics.  Non-traditional women are more responsive and would react more. If one or the other occurs, it seems that the struggle for control is always at a tug.

Keith Sanford, psychologist at Baylor University conducted an experiment that used different assesments to measure conflict communication with in married couples. Via questionaires and reports through self, partner and observer showed how couples handled conflict. Other factors such as validity with the questionnaires and the context of the data had to be included in the experiment to validate their results. Results showed for the context-general assesment, more wives engage in communication when more behaviors and trait-like qualities arised as well in the context-specific assesment which dealt with a single event. For husbands, in the context-general assesments, men scored lower and the correlation between the context-general and context-specific was not significant. Overall, there was significant difference in the partner-reports used. 

What does this all say? In my observations, it shows that women would react more in situations of conflicts that readily calls for conflict(s) whereas men dont probably see where conflict began and just feed into because its in their nature to "fight" and "argue " back. Whether a traditional or modern wife, conflict doesnt change just the actions and reactions involved have evolved over time just like men and women. The ability to communication isnt going to change. Use of verbal communication and in order to resolve conflict before it escalates into something greater has to change between the people who started it.

References:

Sanford, Keith. "Assessing Conflict Communication in Couples: Comparing the

Validity of Self-Report, Partner-Report, and Observer Ratings.  Journal of Family Psychology. 2009. Vol 24. 165-174.
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