Chapter 10 Power Power defined by the ability to exercise one s will Personal power Social power o Power exercised over oneself aka autonomy o The ability of people to exercise their wills over the wills of others o Exerted in different realms including over the family o Parental power Operates between parents and children o Referring to unmarried couples or to unmarried AND married couples Intimate partner power Marital power o Partners described as husbands and wives What Does Martial Power Involve Several components 1 Involves decision making 2 Division of labor 3 Allocation of money 4 Sense of empowerment the relationship o Decisions about where couple will live how to spend leisure time etc o Who earns money who does work around the house o Who controls spending for household access to personal spending money o Being about to influence one s partner and feeling free to raise complaints to one s spouse about In addition to the components of martial power the concept involves both objective means of power and subjective measure of fairness in the marriage Objective means of power Subjective measure of fairness o Who actually makes more or more important decisions o Is the relationship equal are both partners contributing o Fairness can be thought of in terms of Equality vs equity Equality is when both partners share equally in the rights and responsibility of the Equity are the rewards and privileges of the relationship proportional to the contributions relationship of the partner Both objective measures of actual equality and partner s subjective perceptions of fairness influence martial satisfaction marital commitment and the risk of disruption but the perception of fairness is generally more powerful Power Bases Six bases of social power 1 Coercive power a Based on the dominant person s ability and willingness to punish the partner either with psychological emotional abuse or physical violence b Ex slapping your partner spanking a child cold shoulder withhold sex a Based on an individual s ability to give material or nonmaterial gifts and favors b Ex presents emotional support financial support helps out when needed a Dominants person s superior judgment knowledge or ability b Power typically goes to person with more education and experience c Ex typically finance to men and children and domestic duties to women a Based on the persuasive content of what the dominant person tells another individual b Ex convincing a spouse to do or not to do something a Based on a person s emotional identification with the partner b Wanting to make the other partner happy c Referent power increases as partners grow older together d Ex a husband going to a party because his wife wants him to go a Stems from the dominant individual s ability to claim authority or the right to request b Ex most traditional family households are ran by the man 2 Reward power 3 Expert power 4 Informational power 5 Referent power 6 Legitimate power compliance The Dynamics of Marital Power Classical Perspectives on Martial Power Egalitarian Power and the Resources Hypothesis Relative power of wives and husbands results from their relative resources The resource hypothesis Holds that the spouse with more resources has more power in marriage Resources include education and earnings good judgment The resource hypothesis was supported by finding that the relative resources of wives and husbands were important in determining which partner made more decisions Older spouses and those with more education made more decisions The relative power of a wife increased after she no longer had young children or when she worked outside of the home Criticism of the Resource Hypothesis The questions asked were not that important how much money to spend on food and important areas were skipping sexual life how many kids etc Did not take into consideration their background personalities and the way they interact Resources and Gender Dair Gillespi research 1971 Men Husbands usually earn more money than wives so have more access to economic resources Often older and better educated more status and more knowledgeable expert and informational power Women Greater physical strength coercive power Fewer alternative to marriage if could not support themselves American marriages continue to be inegalitarian even though they are no longer traditional At first in marriage power is equal until the woman gets pregnant than she relies on her husband Women can also threatening to leave husband with the children Stresses the idea that resources are not effective in conferring martial power in traditional societies that Resources in Cultural Context In a traditional society male authority is legitimate power Resources in cultural context legitimate male dominance with a patriarchal norm True for immigrant families Asia Central and South America Transitional egalitarian situation Husband wife relationships are more flexible and negotiated Generations born in the US If traditional norms of male authority are strong husbands will almost inevitably dominate regardless of personal resources If an egalitarian norm of marriage were completely accepted then a husband s superior economic achievements would be irrelevant to his decision making power both would have power It is only in transitional egalitarian situations in which neither patriarchal norms nor egalitarian norms are firmly entrenched Martial power is negotiated Love Need and Power Love referent power Typically women hold the less powerful position Woman value close emotional relationships than men do Woman are encouraged to express feelings A woman can gain power over her husband if her husband clearly places a high value on her Men are less relatively powerful in the private intimate sphere than they are in the public world Current Research on Martial Power Blumstein and Schwartz covered aspects such as money and sex and it compared married couples to heterosexual cohabiting couples and gay male and lesbian couples Even though more women are entering the work force their decision making has increased somewhat but not to a degree with the level of income many of them have been earning Household Work and Leisure Time Women s satisfaction with the fairness of their partner s contributions to household work is strongly associated with women s relationship happiness marital commitment and depression Unequal division of household labor is accepted as normal American society shows an increase of men s
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