Indicators to Assess Conjugal Power and Women’s Family Status:
A Reflection and Review
By Anqi Xu
Abstract
Based on query about and review of past literatures that took relative variables
like “who possesses more family power” and “who undertakes more housework” as
major indices to assess women’s family status, this study puts forward 9 indicators,
which fall into two categories—“personal autonomy in various aspects of family life”
and “subjective satisfaction with marital role equality”—and manipulates “relative
resource theory”, “cultural norm theory”, “marriage demand and dependency theory”
and “power implementation process” into multi-faceted affecting variables, so as to
construct an index system and an explanatory framework for women’s status in
families.
Keywords: family power; women’s family status; reflection and review;
measurement and explanation
1. Study Background
Most domestic studies with regard to family power are related to women’s family
status. When it comes to how to specifically measure the family power, most studies
tend to favor the relative power assessing mechanism and multi-dimensionality, with
subentry variables in various numbers and having different definitions. In sum,
common models used to measure and assess the marital power are as follows:
“Regular management weight theory”-who has the final say on regular
management issues like family economic control, labor division and social
communications and so on will be given a bigger weight (Xu, 1992; Zhang, 1994);
“Major family affaires decision theory”-it believes that regular economic control
can not be used to reflect women’s family status, and that only decision power on
major family affaires like what to produce, how to choose or whether to build a
house, whether to buy expensive goods or large production equipments, whether to
invest or lend money and so on can symbolize and embody the real family power.
This argument is supported by most scholars and has become a mainstream point of
view, yet there is difference with respect to specific number of index items (Tao &
Jiang, 1993; Zhang, 1994; Gong, 1993; Wan, 1994; Liu, 1994); “Interviewee’s
Objective Acceptance Theory”- To change the situation that important decision
items are selected beforehand by researchers, some scholars take family decision
items most selected and considered the most important by interviewees (Yi, 2001), or
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the two foremost items with regard to decision-making power ordering, that is
decision results of ‘family expenditure distribution’ and ‘children’s cultivation,’ as
specific indices to reflect the conjugal power, a multi-faceted concept, and to assess
women’s family status (Chen et al, 2000); “Diverse Index Integration Theory”diverse indices reflecting power on “major family affairs” (production and house
construction), “daily affairs” (daily life and financial management) and “children’s
affairs” are used to measure the conjugal power structure in rural area (Lei, 1994);
or the sum of the value of indices relating to family financial management and control,
purchase of durable goods, the power to say on children’s future(schooling,
employment, choice of spouse), having kids or not and the power to choose on one’s
own will is used to measure the overall level of women’s family status (Sha, 1995);
“Real Family Power Measurement Theory”- it adopts “who possesses more real
family power” as a variable into the conjugal power index system as a major assessing
index (Xu, 1992; Shen & Yang, 1995; Shen, 1999), and believes that as a single index
with an advantage of inclusiveness, the real family power is more operable and
effective in describing and analyzing the real pattern of marital power (Xu, 2001;
Zheng, 2003).
In recent years, new progress has been made in relation to family power study.
There are suggestions that the family decision-making power should be distinguished
from the personal power, and personal autonomy should be a better index for
measuring conjugal power because autonomy per se marks how much independent
will and freedom an individual possesses and accurately reflect the connotation of
power (Zuo, 2002). The results of a path analysis study using the data from The 2nd
Chinese Women’s Social Status Survey and taking real family power as mediate
variable show that personal consumption autonomy index has an obvious direct
impact on one’s satisfaction with his/her family status, so its overall impact is
significantly bigger than that of the regular financial control power. The study also
reports that the satisfaction of married women and men with their family status
depends not on whether they possess real family power but mainly on their mutual
communication, equality and mutual respect (Xu, 2004a); Zheng Dandan’s (2003)
research results also show that the influence of major family affaires decision power
on real family power is much less than that of regular economic control power which
they don’t value much.
The above new achievements gained not only enrich and deepen the study on
family power, but also challenge and call in question some of the past conclusions that
women’s gradually increased decision-making power on family affairs (or major
family affairs) is a major indicator and symbol of women’s increased family status,
and that wives’ undertaking more housework means they have lower family status.
This makes us think in a deeper and broader way: Is it an obligation or power to have
the final say on family financial issues? Relative increase of wives’ family
decision-making power is an indicator of their higher family status? What indices may
more effectively measure women’s family status? And so on.
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2. Reflection and Review
Based on analysis and review of previous literature and quantitative data from
programs like The 2nd Shanghai Women’s Social Status Survey, this study carries out
an academic reflection and review on topics like family power measurement and its
relation to women’s family status.
2.1 Multidimensional indices are not effective or operable for measuring
family power
Of the “Regular management weight theory,” “Major family affairs deciding
theory,” “Interviewee’s objective acceptance theory,” “Diverse index integration
theory,” “Real family power measuring theory,” the first four measuring approaches
use multiple sub-indices in measuring marital power and can certainly show us the
rich contents of the multi-faceted and stratified conjugal power relationship, but their
serious defects are as fllows:
Firstly, different indices are restrained by gender division of works and
weighting
Because of gender difference in family life and influence areas in terms of labor
division, when it comes to the multiple-varible including diverse power items,
questions would be raised as to whether they are related to wives’ or husbands’
concerns or strength; and different items have different importance, so weighting
items is also a problem.
Secondly, the missing values of several indicator items are too high to be
consolidated into compound variables.
This is mainly because different families have different items for decision-making
as different families have different life cycles and even in the same family there are
different life cycles. For instance, some families don’t have money to buy cars, houses
or to invest or run businesses, families without kids or old couples don’t have to make
decisions over children’s cultivation, schooling or employment, and open-minded
parents usually agree to their children’s decisions on issues like education,
employment and mate choice, and so on. The data from the Sub-program Shanghai
under the 2nd Chinese Women’s Social Status Survey show that except daily family
expenditure, real family power and personal consumption autonomy, the missing
values of most power variables rang from 7% to 44%. Although it seems that it is not
a big deal for a variable to have 7% missing value, 12 items together may have overall
missing values up to 68%. So it is obvious that the overall index for family power
can’t be regarded as a simple sum of points assigned to each of the 12 items or a
compound result of factor analysis.
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Thirdly, it’s yet under dispute whether some of the indicators can reflect the
connotations of power.
Some studies use “daily expenditure” and “children’s cultivation” as two major
indices for family power measurement, which come as the first two most chosen items
on the interviewees’ list. Technically, taking the items chosen by interviewees as the
most important decisions for measuring may avoid the arbitrariness of important
decision items being decided by researchers, but there still exist immovable obstacles
in actual operation. As mentioned above, the high missing values as a problem comes
in the first place, for instance, in the study, 36.9% of the interviewees reported that
they have no idea what is the most important family decision power (Chen et al, 2000).
Given such a high percentage of study objects not knowing what to choose, it is not
necessarily more objective or effective to let interviewees decide the items of conjugal
power measurement. Moreover, different life cycles make some interviewees choose
“no such a decision” or “not applicable” as they haven’t experienced some of the
important family affairs, which leading to loss of many samples1.
What needs further deliberation is that interviewees have pointed more at the two
items, is it because daily expenditure and children’s cultivation appear most
frequently and thus stimulate and impress the interviewees? Or is it just something
new due to the rising value of knowledge and education background as well as the
arrival of one-family-one-kid era under the context of market economy? And is it
because women have more decision-making power in this two areas, or maybe is it
just an extension of their responsibility and the role of care-giver? So, it is worthy of
further discussion that wheter the two items of family power are“most frequent” or
“most important,” “decidesion” or “implement,” “power” or “obligation”. And
whether women’s family status can be thus measured is subject to thinking over.
Taking family expenditure as example, studies show that in Japan, Philippines and
South Korea, families with wives taking care of the daily expenditure account for
about 70%, but families with wives possessing real family power account for only
10%-20% (quoted from Japan’s Cabinet document). That’s to say, in a traditional
culture with strictly gender division, daily financial management is rather an
obligation of wives under the sterotype of “Men as breadwinner while women as
houskeeper” than a type of power, and it at most may reflect part of the family power
but just can’t include the actual influence of men and women in their marital life.
2.2 Positive support needed to confirm the major family power
Maybe it is somehow technically feasible to use the major family decision items
as indices to measure the conjugal power because there is a consensus among
overseas scholars about the concept of marital power that it is the ability to use one’s
If the deficiency value of each item that is “decided by other family members” is added, the weight of actual
deficiency may be even larger. Moreover, interviewees who accepted daily expenditure and kids cultivation as the
most important account for 7.6% and 22.3% respectively. It needs further test whether using these two items
decision-making power as dependent variables to conduct modeling analysis can lead to results that reflect real
family power.
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own will or preference to influence her/his spouse (Warner, Lee & Lee, 1986;
Mirowsky, 1985; Yi, 2001). But the current problem is that some of our scholars have
upgraded items like “what to produce,” “housing choice/construction,” “purchase of
expensive goods or major farming equipment,” “investment or loan,” “having kids or
not,” “children’s schooling or employment” into the major family power category and
downgraded “family financial control” and “family labor division” as daily family
affairs, which is a bit arbitrary and technically ungrounded and lacks positive support
as well.
As a matter of fact, items considered as major family affairs are mostly decided
through consultations between husbands and wives. According to the results of the
Sub-program Shanghai under the 2nd Chinese Women’s Social Status Survey, in
Shanghai family affairs decided jointly by husbands and wives account for 74% -94%.
In addition, relevant analyses indicate that these item decision-making indices don’t
show significant positive correlation to the female interviewees’ satisfaction with their
family statuses.
As different decisions have different importance and occurring frequency, some
overseas scholars call family decisions that take little time but affect the major
direction of family life as “orchestration power” and those that take time and energy
and have less importance “implementation power.” It is considered a better a choice to
examine those decisions that have low frequency but great importance (such as
buying a house) (Rothschild, 1976). However, the above definition of the nature about
family power is neither perfect nor short of arbitrariness: a decision that takes less
time is surely important? And a decision that takes time and energy is definitely less
important?2 What’s the standard to distinguish the more important items from the less
important ones? “Implementation power” is power or obligation on earth? All these
questions require further exploring. Moreover, even those that are considered
important family decision items in the west don’t necessarily fit in Chinese studies,
especially in the past when urban families usually got their housing from the
government as welfare benefits, and interviewees during their life cycles have
experienced few or even never experienced or have no need to make decisions about
things like “business operation,” “investment/loan,” “buying a car,” “having a kid or
not,” etc. So whether all these items can reflect the substantial power of Chinese
husbands and wives is to be further checked with empirical data.
Just because multi-dimensional models for conjugal power description are much
challenged, most studies in the western literature only pick those decision measuring
indices that fit most in their programs (Mirowsky, 1985; Walker, 1996; Lindahl &
Malik, 1999; Tichenor, 1999).
2.3 Relative power indices present defects in micro studies
As a major index for measuring women’s family status on the macro level, the
family power model has been playing an important role in practice. Especially when
2
Interviewees in some of the above studies think that the most important decisions are mostly those that appear
very often and take them a lot of time and energy, such as daily economic issues and children’s cultivation (Chen
Yuhua, Yi Qingchun, Lu Yuxia, 2000).
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one makes cross-time or cross-area comparisons; the varying weight of wives’ role in
family decisions or the regional differences indicates those women’s family status
changes with time and place. Many studies report that urban couples are most likely
to make family decisions jointly and wives in urban areas tend to have more real
family power than their husbands; while in rural areas more than 50% men have the
final say at home and women have much less real family power than their husbands
(Shen et al, 1999; Xu, 2001; The Executive Team on The 2nd Chinese Women’s Social
Status Survey, 2001; Zheng, 2003). However, as family power index is a relative
concept, increase in wives’ power means husbands’ have less power. If, in micro
studies, the family decision power of husbands and wives is set as a major index to
measure the family status of them, then one may face the following paradox or
dilemma:
Firstly, husbands have less power while wives have higher status?
As authority of husband is a product of traditional patriarchy, it reins up and
oppresses women and should be entirely negated. Then one usually would accept that
the greater power women have, the higher their family status is. However, as relative
power indices raise wives’ family power, husbands’ power indices will surely fall.
This will not only cause men’s worry or even resistance, but also go against
conceptions like construction of an equal, harmonious conjugal partnership, the
scientific outlook on development which aims at conjugal accord and sustainable
development.
To be candid, as long as a couple are happy with their own cooperative labor
division, the wife is willing to choose her husband as the decision maker, and they
feel satisfied with things between them, is it necessary for outsiders to value their
power model? Or is there any reason to blame the husband for his feudal-mindedness,
conservativeness, or to correct the wrongs for the wife and call them to change into an
equal-power model?! Further more, is it definitely the best for husbands and wives to
have equal power? Giving real power to women means husbands are “small man,”
“losing masculinity,” “coward”? To have a husband be the decision maker surely
leads to a wife oppressed and unimportant!? Obviously all these biased ideas won’t
get along well with the effort to shape a diversified conjugal roles and interactive
marital mode.
Secondly, power goes along with or against obligation?
Most studies take it as a direct or indirect index that undertaking more
housework means women are lack of resources and power and even have lower
family status, but some studies agree that family power correlates positively with
obligation and responsibility, and those who care more about and do more for the
family or those who are more capable and serve and contribute more to the family are
likely to hold more family power (Shen & Yang, 1995; Xu, 2001; Zuo, 2002). In real
life, some people would rather choose to do less and take less responsibility; others
are unable or have no interest to care more and do more because of their busy work,
poor health or their interest in social power; and still others quit from or give up
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family power arena in order to reduce contradictions and please the spouse. Do those
people have lower status at home? Some scholars suggest that in a “family first”
society, as the family decision power carries a sense of “rack one’s brains” to serve
the whole family, the phenomenon that urban wives have more decision power than
their husbands sometimes covers the freedom for some husbands to evade “racking
their brains” and the hardship that wives have to “fully grab” the family power. So
whether a wife has an equal status with her husband should not be judged wholly
from the power they have, and the activeness o passiveness of the power should be
considered as well (Zuo, 2002). In other words, family power, under certain
circumstances, is only an extension of responsibility and service, and the satisfaction
with the authority so gained is often reduced by the hard work done and service
provided.
Thirdly, which is more relevant to family status, relative power or conjugal
equality and accord?
Relevant analytical results that indicate that not only the so-called major family
affairs decision power and property ownership registration but even the
comprehensive index representing the “real family power” shows no significant
correlation with female interviewees’ satisfaction with their family status. The three
variables representing personal autonomy, however, show a greater positive impact on
women’s family status satisfaction.
There is a meaningful finding that although more power on daily financial affairs
correlates positively with possession of real family power, interviewees tend to feel
discontented rather than more satisfied with their family status. Using the
path-analysis approach with the family affairs division satisfaction as the intermediary
variable, another study also shows that, instead, wives with daily expenditure power
are discontented with the family work division, thus resulting in a reduced satisfaction
with their marriage and family status (Xu, 2004b). All these call in question, from
different perspectives, the subjective inference that family decision power equals
women’s status.
There is another meaningful result that family status satisfaction not only
depends mainly on mutual communication, equality, respect and marital interaction
content between husbands and wives but also significantly and positively correlates
with wives satisfaction with family work division (but not how much housework they
undertake). These study results challenge and deny, from different sides, the major
assessment role of relative power variables—including relative domestic work
load—in women’s family status index system.
3. Preliminary conclusions and suggestions
Based on analysis of the defects in various theories in previous literature, such as
“regular management weight theory,” “major family affairs deciding theory,”
“interviewees” objective acceptance theory” and “diverse index integration theory”
and query about and review of relative objective variables like “who has more real
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family power” and “who undertakes more house work” as major indices to measure
women’s status, this paper has come up with a few preliminary conclusions and some
suggestions for the reference of further studies and discussions. These conclusions
and suggestions relate to family power measuring, construction of women’s family
status index system and explanatory framework as well as academic goals to achieve
by further working on relevant topics in a deeper and detail way.
3.1 Family Power Measuring
There are so many defects like gender difference, high deficiency or a concept
not necessarily containing marital power substance when it comes to use of
multi-dimensional itemized family affairs decision indices that it is hard to come up
with, through ways like weighting or variable simplification to draw common factors,
a comprehensive index to represent the real conjugal power, so “real family power
measuring theory”—to measure the marital power with an inclusive index “who has
more real family power by comparison”—is accepted by some studies and considered
having advantages like concise, clear and operable, making it possible to evade
difficulties like gender difference and sample deficiency caused by grouping of
different interests and influences and for interviewees to make a general judgment and
reply as well as to allow researchers to reduce troubles like multi-dimensional
variable weighting when constructing the theoretical framework (Xu, 2001). Some
overseas scholars use single item index—“in general, who makes more final decisions
while making decisions?” (Amato, Johnson, Booth & Rogers, 2003) and “who is the
general holder of real family power?” (Japan cabinet, 2003).
Then, would interviewees so differently understand the single item index
“who has more real family power by comparison, husband or wife?” that there exists
deviation in study results? According to several studies using the above single item
index and taking families in Shanghai as study object, though there exists slight
difference in husbands’ and wives’ relative power, the basic pattern remains roughly
the same that most couples are of equal-power type, and interviewees from different
times also agree that urban wives have more real family power and more rural
husbands are family decision-makers (Xu, 1992, 2001, 2004b; Shen &Yang, 1995;
Shen et al, 1999), which indicates that “the conjugal power” as a comprehensive
index to measure the marital power is quite steady and sound. To be true, the
reliability and efficacy of the single index measuring approach is sure limited, but it’s
much harder to have the best than better.
3.2 Women’s family status indicator index and its explanatory model
Though it is more operable and effective to measure the actual conjugal power
with “real family power” than with multiple itemized indices, whether it is an
effective direct index to assess women’s micro (individual) family status satisfaction
is to be further examined in a positive way. Especially for men who look more to their
professional roles and social values, the relative individual family power is less
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attractive and has less sense of achievement than the social power. Some women do
care about their own family values and marital power, but as long as their husbands
are taking care of the family, love them and treat them equally, they won’t have
negative sense of feeling even if husbands are family decision makers. As stated
above, making wives have real family power doesn’t lead to their increased family
status satisfaction, which further calls in question the direct link between relative
marital power and family status assessment. The fact that wives’ family status
satisfaction doesn’t correlate significantly to whether they possess the so-called
“major family affairs deciding power” denies, from another aspect, the effectiveness
of the relative conjugal power index measuring approach.
So this paper puts forward two areas as follows that should be noticed when it
comes to women’s family status measuring.
Firstly, personal autonomy in all aspects of family life
Generally speaking, if only wives have freedom to choose or have decision
power on issues like buying goods they like, social intercourse with relatives and
friends, going out for work/ study and social communications, they won’t care much
or have negative sense of feeling even their husbands have more power on family
affairs. Some previous studies take the variable “To what degree can wives have
independent decision power on their own behaviors and influence the behaviors of
other family members including their husbands?” (Warner, Lee & Lee, 1986) or
“Wives have decision power on their own behaviors/activities” (Godwin & Scanzoni,
1989) as one of the measurement indices, leading to a suggestion that personal
autonomy is the indicator of one’s independent will and freedom and is a better
measurement index (Zuo, 2002). It can also seen that when it comes to measuring
women’s family status satisfaction, their autonomy indices like “personal
consumption,” “going out for work/study,” and “supporting their parents” are better
than variables representing relative family affairs decision power or even real family
power. Therefore, as long as the deficiency is not very high, personal autonomy
variables like work/study, consumption, hobby, social communication and
sex/childbearing can be adopted into the family status index system.
Secondly, Subjective satisfaction with marital role equality
In measuring women’s family status, in addition to seeing about whether they
have personal autonomy, the subjective mental feeling should also be noticed. No
doubt nice conjugal interaction helps to raise wives’ satisfaction with increased power.
How much influence can wives exert on family decisions? How satisfied are wives
with their husbands’ respect to them, their family work division and family status?3
All these queries can be adopted as measuring indices into the assessment system,
thus resulting in a greater weight of subjective satisfaction in assessing women’s
family status.
Subjective satisfaction indices have defects, for instance, some wives, under the
To do the measuring, we use the subjective index “housework division satisfaction” rather than the objective one
“who undertakes more housework”. This is also because in different families there are different conjugal
interaction modes, and people feel differently about relative amount of housework. If only wives feel it is
reasonable, fair and pleasant, it won’t downgrade their family status indices.
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influence of the traditional conception that women follow men, are not sensitive to
their being treated unfairly and their unequal status, leading to a higher subjective
perception of satisfaction with their family status. However, now that some women
don’t think they have a lower family status, why should we blame them for their low
awareness and gender-dullness and be angry with their being so submissive?!
As to how to explain factors that affect the conjugal power, the most employed
theory is the resource assumption that those who have more resources-in terms of
education background, career rank, income, etc.-are more advantageous in making
family decisions. There are also studies using the difference of resources between
wives and husbands to explain the magnitude of power and believing that relative
resources are more explanatory (McDonald, 1980; Blood & Wolfe, 1960; Scanzoni,
1979; Godwin & Scanzoni, 1989; Warner, Lee & Lee, 1986; Coltrane, 1996). Cultural
norms analysis looks more at whom cultures and sub-cultures accept as the authority
and the influence of gender norms, religious beliefs and general social norms on the
conjugal power. Numerous studies indicate that the higher the husbands’ level in
education, career and income, the more can they accept an equal marital relationship.
There are also studies that show the resource theory is more explanatory in the
developed western nations and the developing world is more subject to the cultural
context (Rodman, 1972; Hill & Scanzoni, 1982; Rodman, 1972; Rank, 1982;
Mirowsky, 1985; West & Zimmerman, 1987; Burr, Ahern & Knowles, 1977; Warner,
Lee & Lee, 1986). Marriage demand and dependency theory believes that in
marriages, those who show more love and have more marriage demand are more
likely to obey their spouses and lose power because they are worrying that their
spouses would cease to be faithful or go away. Women often take marriage as where
they’d long stay, and after getting married they are more likely to depend financially
and mentally on their husbands to keep safe the home, so they are more likely to give
up their power or accept their husbands’ dominance (Rothschild, 1976; McDonald,
1980; Scanzoni, 1979; Hill & Scanzoni, 1982; Molm, 1991; Lamaner et al, 1995). The
author’s previous studies have extended the concept of resource—not only adopting
the pre-marital personal and family background indicators into the explanatory model
but also introducing a compound variable “house-holding ability and
contributions”—and have gained strong positive support (Xu, 2001).
Based on previous studies by other scholars and the early work of our own, this
paper suggests that to measure women’s family status, one should abandon the old
thinking mode and models that transforms the relative family power and housework
load into major indices and should, instead, employ the multi-dimensional and
compound indices that represent personal autonomy and subjective satisfaction with
role equality in all aspects of life. At the same time, we transform “relative resource
theory,” “cultural norm theory” and “marriage demand and dependency theory” as
well as ‘power operation process’ (Cromwell & Wieting, 1975) into multi-faceted
operationalized variables and come up with the following explanatory framwork to
measure and describe women’s family status, assess and analyze its affecting factors
(see the illustration below).
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Affecting Factors
Resource
Marriage Dependency
Cultural Norm
Power Operation Process
Conflict handling
Conjugal communication
Gender ideology
Regional difference
Relative dependency on marriage
Support from wife’s parents’ family side
Housekeeping capability & service
Contribution to family economy
Education Background
Premarital personal & family background
Women’s Family Status Satisfaction
Family Life Autonomy
Role Equality Satisfaction
Satisfaction on Family Status
Satisfaction on Housework Division
Husbands’ Respect
Family Decision-making power
Sex & Childbearing
Social Intercourse
Free time hobby
Work or Study
Personal Consumption
Women’s Family Status Indicator Index & Its Explanatory Framework
This measuring scheme and explanatory framework has the following features:
Firstly, women’s family status depends not on their relative power but on those
comprehensive indicators that can represent their absolute autonomy and satisfactory
perception of their family role equality. The new approach of the system lies in its
adhering to the Scientific Outlook On Development that women’s higher status
doesn’t come at the cost men’s status, and wives and husbands should go in for
construction of an equal and harmonious partnership, a mutually beneficial conjugal
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interaction, jointly raising both women’s and men’s autonomy and satisfaction in
family life and moving toward the goal of conjugal freedom, accord and all-around
development.
Secondly, instead of explaining women’s family status with one single theory, a
multi-dimensional systemized comprehensive model is set up to make it more
explanatory. Resource assumption theory, cultural norm analysis theory and marriage
demand and dependency theory will have their respective influence and predictive
roles. Moreover, transforming the power operation process into an explanatory
variable is also a try in constructing this framework, the underlying assumption here is:
women’s lower family status comes from barriers in marital communication, being
forced to obey, being always tolerant when conflicts occur, even when humiliated and
beaten by their husbands.
Thirdly, to contribute to the construction of relevant theories, we, in the first
place, have made an effort in extending the concept of resources. That’s to say,
resources that affect women’s family status not only appear as tangible and material
things like school credentials, economic incomes and pre-marital personal and family
background, but are rather contained in intangible, emotional and housekeeping assets
like family responsibility, family affairs managing capability, service and
contributions and support from loved ones and relatives. The major reason is that
family decision judgment, knowledge and capability don’t necessarily come from
school and professional training, but more depend on life practice and experience
accumulation; people more capable of housekeeping tend to be trusted and accepted
by others; those who serve more, care more and give more in the family are more
likely to gain respect and confidence from other family members, thus can exert more
influence on family decisions. Next, we don’t deny the importance that women’s
human resource assets especially economic independence should be enhanced. Short
of professional training and independent economic resources, women will inevitably
depend on their husbands both mentally and financially and, have to tolerate or
passively obey even when facing situations like husbands ceasing to be faithful, home
violence, or have to keep the home for fearing economic consequences. And thirdly,
the traditional gender attitude makes family role division inflexible and justifies
authority of husband, for instance, “husbands are to make money and wives take care
of the family,” “housework is of women’s job” or “important family affairs should be
decided by men”. And Chinese families have long been under the influence of
traditional gender cultures, especially in rural areas, and market economy impact has
caused a reversion of it. So we have got two reasons to adopt indicators of area and
gender ideology into the explanatory model: to localize western theories; to modify, in
a pragmatic way, the traditional gender conception and conjugal interaction
pattern—“men work out and women in,” “men lead and women follow,” “men are
strong and women weak”—and to resist and eliminate discrimination or prejudice
against women.
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3.3 Suggestions for conducting follow-up studies in a deeper and detail way
The marital power is considered to consist of dominant power, potential power
and recessive power. And the potential power is believed to depend on gender
conceptions in a society and usually plays an important role before the conjugal
relationship begins to shift and a conflict occurs. The potential power starts to work
when the weaker side of a marriage foresees the demand and will of the other side
possessing bigger power(Komter, 1989), or when either or both sides of a marriage
gives up what she/he intends to do or what change she/he intends to make after
considering the negative response that may occur or for fearing a damage to the
marriage, or when either or both sides of marriage is try to prevent a conflict from
happening. The family power and the status of men and women are both
multi-dimensional and multi-faceted and a dynamic and complicated interactive
process. Cost input, resource exchange and establishment of authority in marriages
are often based on intangible interpersonal and symbolic communications like love,
respect, house-keeping capability, service and contribution, and are so indistinct,
indirect and potential in nature that they are hard to measure accurately (Xu, 2001).
Just because family power and family status are characterized by ambiguity,
indirectness and potentiality, a general quantitative analysis is hard to answer such
questions as: What behaviors or decisions have a sense of power? With what
situations/events or by what policies/game-theory patterns that family authority is
built or accumulated? How the two sides of a marriage think and act and why? What
assets/value symbols, interests/satisfactions and so on are there behind the power and
status? So an approach combining qualification and quantification is needed to
observe, identify and analyze, from a multi-dimensional, dynamic and panoramic
perspective and in a thorough and detail way, the dominant and recessive family
influences/establishment of authority and its operation process, thus to enrich and
deepen the study results relating to women’s family status measurement and
explanation.
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Author: Anqi Xu, A researcher of Institute of Sociological Studies, Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences
E-mail: xaq@sass.org.cn.
The original of this paper is in Chinese language and published in Sociological
Research 2005(4).
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