CHAPTER 14
POWER AND VIOLENCE
IN MARRIAGES AND FAMILIES
I. What Is Power?
A Power is the ability to exercise one's will.
1. Personal power, or autonomy is power exercised over oneself.
2. Social power is the ability to exercise will over the wills of others.
3. Marital power is the power between married partners.
II. What Does Marital Power Involve?
A. Marital power is complex and has several components.
1. who gets to make family decisions
2. the division of labor in the family
3. partners’ sense of empowerment
4. There are objective measures of power and a subjective measure of
fairness. It is the partners’ subjective perception of fairness that influences marital satisfaction.
B. Bases of power.
1. coercive power - the dominant partner’s ability to punish a partner
2. reward power - the ability to give rewards to a partner
3. expert power - stemming from the dominant partner’s superior abilities
4. informational power - based on the persuasive power of changing a partner with information
5. referent power - based on the less dominant partner’s emotional
identification with the more dominant partner
6. legitimate power – the ability of dominant partner to claim authority
III. The Dynamics of Marital Power
A. Classical Perspectives on Marital Power
Research on marital power began in the 1950s with the research of social scientists Robert Blood and Donald
Wolfe. At this time, before the feminist movement of the 1970s, interest in marital power was more academic
than political.
1. Egalitarian Power and the Resource Hypothesis
a. The Resource Hypothesis (Blood and Wolfe)
1. Relative power between wives and husbands results from their relative "resources" as individuals.
2. The spouse with more "resources" has more power in the marriage.
3. Most families have a "relatively egalitarian" decision-making structure.
4. Marital power is allotted differently according to the marital or family issue.
5. Spouses who are older and have more education have more power.
6. Relative power of the wife is greater once children are older, or when wife works outside the home.
2. Criticism of the Resource Hypothesis
a. Marital power is more than which partner makes the final decisions.
b. The resource hypothesis has a narrow focus.
3. Resources and Gender
a. Feminist Dair Gillespie pointed out that power-giving resources tend to be unevenly distributed between the
sexes.
b. Resources are gender influenced. Women have fewer resources as a result of reproductive roles and
economic dependence.
c. Working contributes to marital power, but women do not necessarily participate equally in decision making.
d. Resource theory does not fully explain marital power.
4. Resources in Cultural Context
a. The family ecology theoretical perspective stresses that family interaction needs to be examined within the
context of the society and culture in which it exists.
b. In a traditional society, male authority is legitimate power. This perspective is termed resources in cultural
context.
c. The cultural context conditions resource theory. Resource theory explains marital power only when there is
no overriding egalitarian norm or patriarchal norm of marital power.
d. It is only in the present transitional egalitarian situation in which neither patriarchal norms nor egalitarian
norms are firmly entrenched.
5. Love, Need, and Power
a. Some have argued that a primarily economic analysis does not do justice to the complexities of marital
power.
b. This theory is congruent with what sociologist Willard Waller termed the principle of least interest.
c. Like resource theory, the relative love and need theory is a variation of exchange theory.
B. Social Class, Race/Ethnic Diversity, and Conjugal Power
1. Social Class
The majority of Americans, regardless of class, do not see power inequalities in their own marriages.
2. Marital Power in African American Marriages
a. Black couples report more egalitarian relationships than those in other racial-ethnic groups.
b. The purported egalitarianism of African American families is complex.
3. Mexican Americans and Role Making
The belief that Mexican American marital relations are unqualifiedly patriarchal is outdated.
4. Marital Power in Korean American Families.
a. The social and cultural context of married women’s labor force participation among Korean American
families limits the impact that a wife’s employment has on her marital power.
b. The resource theory of marital power is more applicable to the situation of African American and Mexican
American marriages, while the resources in cultural context theory seems operative in Korean American families.
C. The Future of Marital Power
1. Equalization of marital power of men and women can occur in a number of ways:
a. Women can attain status and develop resources that are equal to men in the public sphere.
b. Society can come to value more highly women's resources of caring and emotional expression.
c. Norms of equality can become so strong that spouses will have equal power regardless of resources.
IV. Some American Couples
A. Four Types of Couples Compared
Sociologists Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz conducted a comparative study of four types of couples
including heterosexual married, cohabiting heterosexuals, gay couples, and lesbian couples. Among their findings:
1. Gender is the most significant determinant of power in the relationship.
2. Money is a major determinant of power, even in same-sex relationships.
3. Lesbian couples are most egalitarian and cooperative and transcend the principle that economic resources
determine decision-making power.
4. The degree of relationship commitment positively influences power.
B. Peer Marriage
1. Pepper Schwartz followed up the earlier research on the four types of couples with an exploration of the
factors that facilitate peer marriage.
2. Peer marriages did not necessarily come from feminist ideology.
3. In peer marriages, there is essentially a “no-power” relationship.
V. Power Politics Versus No-Power Relationships
A. Overview
1. Equitable relationships are more likely to be stable and satisfying for both males and females.
2. When partners have equal power and have the ability to mutually influence and be influenced by one another,
they are said to have a "no-power" relationship.
B. Power Politics in Marriage
1. Unequal power relationships in marriage encourage power politics in that partners struggle to gain or keep power
over each other.
2. Power politics leads to manipulation that eventually creates distance and loneliness for both spouses.
3. Few couples knowingly choose power politics; it often happens by default.
C. Alternatives to Power Politics
1. There are alternatives to this kind of power struggle.
a. Some partners grow increasingly separate in their decision making, but this alternative is a poor one for partners
who seek intimacy.
b. A more viable alternative is for the subordinate spouse to disengage from power struggles or for the more
powerful partner to consciously relinquish some power.
2. The Importance of Communication
a. Mates who try to neutralize power without explaining what they are doing and may risk estrangement
b. Often the harder a mate tries to neutralize power, the more effort the dominant spouse will invest in gaining
control.
c. As couples assert their interests and bargain in marriage, communication is especially important in establishing
and maintaining trust.
3. The Change to a No-Power Relationship
a. Changing power patterns can be difficult, even for those who talk about it, because these patterns usually have
been established from the earliest days of the relationship.
b. The best way to work through power changes is to openly discuss power and to fight about it fairly.
c. Suggestions have been offered for how partners involved in power struggles can “disengage”.
D. The Role Marriage Counselors Can Play
1. Today, many marriage counselors are committed to helping couples develop no-power relationships.
2. Couples must recognize that counselors have gender biases of their own.
4. It is important for both partners to feel comfortable with a counselor from the beginning.
VI. Family Violence
A. Major Sources of Data on Family Violence
1. Initially, the only government data available on family violence were FBI compilations of incidents
reported to local law enforcement or child protection agencies.
2. The work of Straus, Gelles, and colleagues in their National Family Violence Surveys pioneered the scientific
study of family violence and their continuing research has shaped the field.
a. These researchers developed a measure of family violence termed the Conflict Tactics Scale
b. The 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence surveys found that, each year, in about one out of every six
couples in the United States, an individual commits at least one violent act against his or her partner.
3. Department of Justice Statistics on Intimate-Partner Violence
a. The Department of Justice collects two kinds of data on violence: The National Crime Victimization Survey
and the Uniform Crime Reports.
b. The NCVS is the more important and is the primary basis for Bureau of Justice Statistics reports on intimate
partner violence.
4. A third major source of data on family violence is the National Violence Against Women Survey. According to this
survey, women are significantly more likely than men to be victims of intimate partner violence.
B. Racial/Ethnic Diversity, Immigration, and Family Violence
Generally speaking, comparisons among racial/ethnic groups as to the prevalence of family violence cannot be
readily made because of the overlap of race/ethnicity with socioeconomic status.
C. Wife and Female Partner Abuse
1. Intimate partner abuse refers to the physical and emotional abuse of spouses, cohabiting or non-cohabiting
relationships partners, or former spouses or intimate partners.
2. Marital Rape
a. Sexual abuse is often combined with other physical violence.
b. Under traditional law, marital rape did not exist because a wife was considered a man's property.
c. Forcing sex upon a wife is still legal in nearly half the states, at least while spouses are living together.
3. The Three-Phase Cycle of Domestic Violence
a. Tensions build up from minor disputes over time.
b. Family situation escalates and eventually explodes in a violent episode.
c. Husband becomes genuinely contrite and treats wife lovingly but cycle eventually repeats itself.
4. Why Do Men Do lt?
a. Husbands who beat wives are attempting to compensate for general feelings of powerlessness or inadequacy in
their jobs, marriages, or both.
b. Wife beating occurs more in relationships where wife can express herself more, or has more education.
c. In the absence of other resources, some men draw on violence to maintain dominance.
5. Why Do Women Continue to Live with It?
a. Women do not like to be beaten and do not cooperate in their beatings.
b. Battered wives lack of personal power begins with fear.
c. Wives may tolerate abuse because they love their husbands, depend on their economic resources, and hope
they will reform.
d. Often women tolerate abuse because of childhood experiences of abuse or because cultural norms may make
them feel that they are responsible for preventing their marriage from failing.
e. Unusually low self-esteem interacts with fear, depression, confusion, anxiety, feelings of self-blame, and
helplessness to create the 'battered wife syndrome," in which a wife feels incapable of making any change.
6. A Way Out: Shelters and Domestic Violence Programs
a. A woman who is being battered must redefine her situation and establish links with the outside world.
b. Shelters help women by providing temporary housing, food, clothing, and counseling.
D. Husband and Male Partner Abuse
1. Both men and women sometimes resort to violence in their relationships.
Research does show a mutual pattern of violence between spouses.
2. Despite mutual abuse, wives are still seen by many as the primary victims.
a. Husbands inflict the most serious injuries.
b. Violent acts by the husband are more likely to be repeated.
c. Much of wife violence appears to be in self-defense.
d. Husbands are more likely to leave an abusive relationship.
3. There are two forms of heterosexual violence against women:
“patriarchal terrorism” and “common couple violence”.
E. Abuse Among Lesbian, Gay Male, and Bisexual Couples
1. Domestic violence has long been one of the lesbian and gay communities’ “nastiest secrets.”
2. The studies that have been done suggest that violence between same-sex partners occurs at about the same
rate as it does in heterosexual relationships.
3. Heterosexual men tend to feel they have a right to abuse their mates, while lesbians do not.
4. Gay/lesbian/bisexual individuals may be afraid to go to the police or to use domestic violence intervention
services.
F. Stopping Relationship Violence
1. Men kill wives and girlfriends at nearly twice the rate of women who kill husbands and boyfriends.
2. On the average, police arrests of abusers deter new assaults.
3. Counseling and group therapy with male offenders has been tried with some success.
4. There was little legal protection for battered women in the past. Today, the criminal justice response often
consists of mandatory arrest.
G. Child Abuse and Neglect
1. Perceptions of what constitutes child abuse or neglect have differed throughout history and in various cultures.
a. Today, standards of acceptable child care vary according to culture and social class.
b. Child abuse - Overt acts of aggression such as excessive verbal derogation, beating, or physical injury.
c. Child neglect – Includes acts of omission – failing to provide adequate physical or emotional care
d. Emotional child abuse or neglect – Involves a parent’s often being overly harsh and critical, failing to provide
guidance, or being uninterested in a child’s needs.
e. Sexual abuse- A form of child abuse that includes forced, tricked, or coerced sexual behavior between a young
person and an older person.
f.. Incest- Sexual relations between related persons, including step relatives.
g. Sibling Violence – Often overlooked, but is the most pervasive form of family violence.
2. How Extensive Is Child Abuse?
a. Interpreting rising rates of reported child abuse to mean that abuse is rapidly increasing may be inaccurate
because most states now have reporting laws that previously did not exist and the definition of child abuse has become
more comprehensive than in the past.
b. The most common forms of maltreatment by female parents are “neglect” and “medical neglect”.
c. Sexual abuse is almost entirely perpetrated by male parents or male relatives.
d. Although abused children live in families of all socioeconomic levels, races, nationalities, and religious groups,
child abuse is reported more frequently among poor and nonwhite families than among middle- and upper-class whites.
3. Abuse Versus "Normal" Child Rearing
a. The culturally defined concept of children as "property" may be an essential component of child abuse.
b. Societal beliefs and conditions represent risk factors for child abuse.
1.) A belief in physical punishment.
2.) Unrealistic expectations of child behavior.
3.) Adults who experienced abuse as a child.
4.) Parental stress and feelings of helplessness.
5.) Increasingly more private families who depend less on kinship and neighborhood relationships.
4. Combating Child Abuse
a. The Criminal Justice Approach - The punitive approach- Child abuse/neglect is a crime to be punished.
b. The Therapeutic Approach - Child abuse/neglect is a family problem requiring treatment
c. The Social Welfare Approach – This approach overlaps with the therapeutic approach.
5. Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
Commercial sexual exploitation is not abuse within the family, but family dynamics often place children in harm’s
way.
H. Elder Abuse and Neglect
1. Although there are no accurate national statistics, estimates are that between 1 and 10 percent of persons over
age 60 are abused or neglected.
2. The emerging profile of the abused or neglected elderly person is of a female, 70 years or older, who has
physical, mental, and/or emotional impairments and is dependent on the abuser-caregiver for both companionship and
help with daily activities.
3. There are many parallels between elder abuse and other forms of family violence, yet it is not yet known whether
adult children who abuse or neglect their parents are more likely to have experienced violent upbringings.
4. Elder abuse victims, compared to the neglected, are relatively healthy and able to meet their daily needs.
5. When there is elder physical abuse, there are likely to be shared living arrangements, the abuser's poor
emotional health, and a pathological relationship between the victim and the abuser.
6. Two models for researching and combating elder abuse
a. Caregiver model- views abusive and neglectful caregivers as persons overwhelmed with the requirements of
caring for elderly family members.
b. Domestic violence model- views elder abuse and neglect as one form of family violence.