Conflict and Power in Marriage
Few couples are truly egalitarian or equal partners.
Many couples will split up rather than asking for help to solve
problems . Communication was the most common complaint,
however prior to marriage, couples had thought that jealousy would
probably be a bigger issue in their relationships.
Only one in five of those questioned said they would take pre
marriage courses and their concerns were more about adaptation to
parenthood.
(authors, Jean-Marie Boisvert et al)
Conflict is natural in marriage because of the problems that
individuals face in their lives together.
Conflict theory looks at the changing roles of men and women n a
diverse post-industrial society such as Canada and sees three related
dilemmas for couple relationships:
1. individual versus collective interest
2. women’s rights versus male entitlement
3. mine versus yours
On a personal level, the common conflicts resulting from the three
dilemmas concern tow issues:
division of labour
expressive quality of the relationship
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Power- is the ability to influence the behaviour of someone
else.
The person who has resources that the other needs has the
power. In industrial society, men who worked to earn the money
that was needed to buy the goods and services the family required
had greater power than women, because housework was
less valued since it was seen as unskilled ( Eichler, 1997 )
The Principle of Lease Interest, explains that the person with the
least commitment to the relationship actually has the greatest power,
since the person with the greater commitment is more likely to give in
to maintain harmony. (Pepleau and Campbell, 2001)
In a recent study to determine what problems couples are likely to
experience in contemporary North American marriages, men and
women in the United States who had taken a pre marriage course
offered by the Roman Catholic Church were asked to rate problems
during the first 5 years of their marriage.
They related to time, sex and money:
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Balancing job and family
Frequency of sexual relations
Debt brought into marriage
Husband’s employment
Financial situation
Household tasks
The problems that arise during the first five years of marriage reflect
the challenges of managing underlying conflict in marital roles.
(Kingston, 1999)
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In General Men and Women Perceive Conflict Differently
Symbolic interactionism explains that men and women perceive the
problems in their relationships differently because they express
emotions differently.
Women have taken on the man’s role of housework and this creates
a different conflict from a woman’s point of view. David Buss explains
that women’s bodies evolved to recover from stressful events so that
they could maintain breastfeeding or children would die.
Men evolved to recover slowly and become angry, so that they were
able to fight off danger.
Hence in a relationship, Buss says that women are more willing to
make complaints and raise conflict. Women also expect more than
they get in a marriage, whereas men, feel pressured to give more.
(Gottman and Silver, 1999).
The communication may be different as well in a couple relationships.
Deborah Tannen 1994, explained that male communication is
competitive and based on the power of outdoing an opponent,
whereas females relate to others on a equal footing.
According to John Gottman, most marital conflict cannot be solved,
but conflicts do not necessarily ruin a marriage. Conflict resolution is
rarely seen, however couples can negotiate how they will resolve the
conflict as it may arise again.
Individuals with the basic strength of fidelity realize that they cannot
change their partners (Erikson, 1997). Systems theory explains that
if they are willing to change their own behaviour, their partners will
have to adjust their behaviour to maintain stability in the relationship.
(Naiman, 2001).
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Money, Housework and Power
Division of labour, including the paid and unpaid work is usually
perceived by both partners as being flair.
True to symbolic interactionists, men have greater power as they
have more money and may be considered stronger and smarter and
therefore, entitled to make the decisions.
These are the traditional roles defined for men and women.
Dual income couples expect their relationship to be based on
egalitarian decision making and division of labour, but the evidence
so far shows that the division of labour has not changed!
A comparison of housework over 30 years was defined as cooking ,
meal clean-up, house cleaning, laundry, ironing, outdoor chores,
home repairs, garden, animal care, bills and accounts,
but not child care.
From 1965 to 1995, the average number of hours of housework
done by women declined from 30 hours a week to 17.5 hours per
week.
The average number of housework done by men doubled from
4.9 to 10 hours per week. Men are doing much more.
However… ratio of work done by women to that done by men
dropped … hence women still do more housework. The study
found that educated men will do more housework, perhaps
because they have a greater sense of equity, the study
concludes (Dubin, 1999)
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Future???
Peer marriage, a truly egalitarian companionate relationship.
Feminist sociologist Pepper Schwartz was not able to find many.
These types of relationships have negotiated gender roles, so that
each is responsible for financial and household duties. Each partner
has equal influence no matter how much money they earn.
Couples in this situation reported that it is hard work being fair,
especially when there are so few role models in our society that is till
organized on traditional roles.
The costs of egalitarian marriages may explain why they are so
uncommon (Schwartz, 2001).
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