Familjelivets organisering - ekonomiska resurser, kön och manlig dominans

Abstract

There is now an extensive body o f feminist research on gender inequalities in marriage based on the assumption that power plays an important causal role here. However, in much of this research the concept of power is implicit rather than investigated explicitly. This artide discusses how the processes of power and differences in power between spouses influence the management of the family finances and the division of labor in the home. One of the most influential sociological theories in this field of research (resource theory) predicts in the first place that the balance of power rests with the partner who contributes most to the family in terms of income, education, status etc. Secondly it makes a connection between the relative economic power of the spouses and how housework is divided between them. This article presents research findings which support such connections - including results from a recent Swedish study by Ahrne & Roman (1997), but the argument put forward here is that the decisionist conception of power applied in the resource theory approach has some serious limitations. Some of these are clearly illustrated by results from the Swedish study mentioned above. The data indicate not only the existence of frequent and open conflicts over the division of labour - where husbands tend to get their own way - but they also suggest that hidden aspects of power shape negotiations between spouses. Even more seriously, the resource theory approach to the balance of power in marriages tends to overlook the importance of ideological and cultural factors, i.e. gender, in reinforcing or counteracting the effects of differences in financial power and resources or of economic equality between spouses. There are, for instance, crucial dimensions of power that do not find expression either in overt or in covert conflicts. A case in point is male authority, which clearly influences marital negotiations among heterosexual couples.