HOW A FEMINIST MARRIAGE WORKS IN PRACTICAL APPLICATION

In the comments thread to this post, my friend Mrs. B poses the following excellent question regarding marriage:

I have a question for you HF. In a situation where neither person is in charge, what happens when you both vehemently disagree with how to handle something....who gets to make the final decision? I realize that in some things compromise might work but in some decisions it wouldn't. For instance, in a post several months ago you mentioned that you went to boarding school and think it is a good thing but your husband detests (your word) them. If you had a child, who would get to make that decision and why?

I guess what I don't understand is that in every other sphere of life, *someone* is in charge. All companies have a hierchy, the military does....every other facet of life does (can you imagine a company being successful when everyone has EQUAL decision making power?) I can almost anticipate your repsonse of 'so why does it have to be the man?'....would you be willing to admit that even if it's not the man that there *is* someone in charge in all relationships? If that is the case then it's not an 'equal' relationship....meaning equal in power.

This is something I have thought about a lot because my very authoritarian father constantly said the same thing to me when I was growing up  -- that someone has to be in charge in every marriage.  I disagreed with him then and I disagree now after having been married myself for over eight years. 

I do value hierarchies in many situations -- like coordinating a military operation, trying a court case, or running a Fortune 500 company.  But marriage is not like those things. Its aims and goals are far more diffuse than merely winning a battle or making a profit.  Also, marriage lasts a lifetime, unlike military or corporate leadership where the junior members can look forward to supplanting the leaders when they retire.  And finally, marriage is small-scale enough that constant negotiation and concensus can and does work.   

First, I will talk about some issues where my husband and I have not seen eye to eye and how we resolved those issues, and then I will derive some general principles from these examples.

-- When we first became engaged, my husband really wanted me to change my last name to his.  I really didn't want to.  Bottom line, it was my name we were talking about so I had the last call.  I kept the last name I was born with and have never regretted it.  My husband has fully accepted my decision.  When we're in public (in the grocery store for example), he'll often call me "Attorney _______."  It's cute and I feel very loved when he does that.

-- My husband also wanted a large wedding with all his friends and relatives, whereas  I would have preferred to elope, go out for lunch afterwards, and perhaps avoid going bankrupt in the process.  But my husband had very strong feelings on the matter so we put together a large wedding.  I'm thrilled that he got his way on this.  I've done a 180 from not caring that much about weddings to now being a wedding junkie-- and I'll always look back fondly on the period when we planned the wedding together (our first joint venture!) and celebrated the exchange of our vows with everyone we knew.  (We clashed at times during the wedding planning process.  I had strong feelings about not signing up for a gift registry so we didn't.  He had strong feelings about not wanting to cut the cake, so we didn't.) 

-- My husband would have preferred me to give up my county prosecutor's job much sooner to start making some real money to pay off our educational debts and save for a house.  But I was having a ball and learning a lot in my job and it was my career we were talking about.  I didn't leave my county prosecutor's job until I was good and ready, until it struck me as a wise professional move to switch to a private law firm. My husband understands and values the decisions I made even if the years I spent making little money put a dent in our finances.

-- I probably would have preferred that my husband not take a substantial pay cut in order to work for a non-profit.  It would be nice to have his full law-firm salary so we could put our house together sooner and make more of a dent in our loans.  But I didn't even question it when my husband announced that he wanted to give up 50% of his pay in order to represent indigent people with disabilities.  After all, it's his career.  And the fact is, it is more important to me than anything that he be happy with what he is doing professionally.

-- When we happened to wander into a pet store one day, we both fell in love immediately with the same corgi puppy.  My husband wanted to buy him immediately, but I didn't want to make a hasty decision.  I didn't think that we could manage to care for the puppy properly with the 12-hour work days we were both putting in at that time.  I insisted that we go to lunch and talk it through.  Over lunch, my husband assured me that I wouldn't have to worry about a thing, that he would take full responsibility for ensuring the proper care of the puppy.  On that understanding, we bought our corgi that afternoon-- probably the best decision we have ever made.  Of course, I was so in love with our corgi that I wound up contributing equally to his care.  We worked out an arrangement whereby the corgi came to work with me one day a week, we each worked from home one day week, and we paid for daycare on the other two days!  Now my husband always teases me about how I "didn't want" the dog. (And yes, I know we shouldn't patronize pet stores because the dogs come from puppy mills, but we couldn't help it -- it was love at first sight.)

-- My husband is in charge of planning the house we are going to build (he has more time and more friends who are builders) so he gets to make more of the decisions related to that.  I have been in charge of planning the trips we have taken so I have had more control over that.

So what general principles govern our marriage? Well first, I should note that we actually clash very rarely.  This is due in part to the fact that our values and preferences are very similar to begin with.  I would not have married someone who was (for example) not career-oriented or who hated dogs or was anti-feminist, because such a person would be against the things I hold most dear.  I believe that if a husband and wife are on the same page about core values and try in good faith to compromise when differences arise, everything can be worked out. 

It is also important that we are both laid-back and not controlling -- our disagreements when we have them never turn into a battle of wills.  I don't go into a disagreement with my husband determined to "win," but to reach a mutually acceptable result.  A mutually acceptable result could mean I get my way, or it could mean he gets his way, or it could mean some sort of middle-ground. 

When we have disagreed, the person who feels most strongly or who is most affected by a decision prevails.  We each have the absolute last word regarding our own careers regardless of how those careers affect the other.  (We have committed to staying in this locality so there will never be a clash where one of us finds a plum job in another part of the country.)

Sometimes certain tasks or goals like building a house or planning a vacation get delegated to one person or another. That person is "in charge" but the other person is consulted and has veto power. 

Having kids, of course, would be a major test of our relationship because there would suddenly be the well-being of a third person to consider.  Fortunately, both of us are strongly opposed to spanking but in favor of setting boundaries and refusing to tolerate bad behavior by children -- so I think we will be on the same page with regard to discipline.  We have discussed the boarding school and the Catholicism issue which are where we would suffer a major values clash. (My husband is a cultural Catholic who would like to bring up his children as Catholics.)  We have agreed to try to make boarding school an option for our child and to expose our child to Catholicism (as well as to my criticisms of Catholicism) via discussion and occasional church services (ha! I'll believe it when I see it -- a church-goer my husband is not).  Ultimately, we're not going to force our child to go to boarding school or become a Catholic-- or prohibit him or her from doing so.  The final decision will be the child's.  We both believe strongly as a general matter in nurturing rather than controlling our child's emerging preferences (within some obvious limits -- obviously we're not going to nurture a child's growing interest in drugs or pornography!). 

CAVEAT: I should note that we are not perfect human beings (at least, I'm not!) so I don't want to imply that we've never been angry or frustrated with each other, because, of course, we have!  But on the whole, I think we do a pretty good job of accommodating each other's desires and needs while accomplishing things like reducing our debt and nurturing our careers. 

Comments

[David Duff]

On reading that, my instant re-action was: two lawyers locked in a marriage - what an idea for the great Neil Simon to write up as a play! Imagine what the rows sound like: affidavits, injunctions, the party of the third party, 'caveat emptor' and so on.

In my own, 40-year marriage, I have found that the best way to proceed is for me to make very clear, at some length and in exact detail, precisely what it is that I wish to happen - and then do what my wife tells me! These days I have the satisfaction of taking out my frustration on hapless commenters who dare to contradict me. At least I can switch them off!

[The Happy Feminist]

My husband does have an annoying habit of saying, just like a judge, that he will take a matter "under advisement." Of course, I yell "Objection!" all the time.

[Ally]

For me, what you have described is the basis for a very sound marriage; ours is a similar relationship. It's about negotiation, respecting one another's needs and wishes and looking for the best solution for the relationship as a whole, not about someone 'having the final say'. We find that if one holds those principles at the heart of any difference of opinion, then the 'best' solution seems to fall out naturally.

I guess it's whatever works for any particular relationship - if both participants are comfortable in a relationship where a designated person has the final say, then that's fine. It wouldn't work for me; but I know one or two couples who do make it work, generally by dividing up the areas of responsibility. He looks after decisions about the car, she makes decisions about schools. That sort of thing.

[Staircase Witch]

When we have disagreed, the person who feels most strongly or who is most affected by a decision prevails. We each have the absolute last word regarding our own careers regardless of how those careers affect the other. (We have committed to staying in this locality so there will never be a clash where one of us finds a plum job in another part of the country.)

This is how we handle many things in our marriage, although I should add--and this is probably true of yours, as well--that being able to do this is predicated on the fact that we each trust the other's judgment and know that no matter how strongly the other person feels, that emotion is always within reason. My husband has the same confidence in my judgment that I have in his, and I think that's a major difference from the kinds of marriages that the women on that site talk about.

The thing is that there is often a very good reason for a strong emotional impulse. I don't want to go overboard about intuition, or imply that women have some preternatural ability to suss out things without knowing why, but there have been times when I felt strongly about a particular choice and couldn't yet explain why we needed to make that choice. More often than not, that turned out to be the right choice to make. I can't help wondering if whether by discounting their own emotional impulses, women in submissive relationships--and their husbands--might be ignoring important right choices and solutions.

[will]

Someone (perhaps BitchPHD) had an interesting article about "Wife Swap." The gist of the article was that swapping wives changes the family dynamic more than swipping husbands bc the wife has the power in the house.

[Mrs. B]

This post was good, HF, thanks for explaining. I must say that our ways of handling conflict are somewhat similar. We've been married for 14 years and we both try to put the other's needs/desires ahead of our own. As I'm sure you know (based upon my comments on the other post) my husband does have final say.....and that's o.k. with me because I trust him and also because I trust God.(o:

There are, of course, differences but I think we've already covered that ground pretty well so I won't start all that up again. But I thank you for answering my question.

[Chalicechick]

This is a great topic. I will probably hit it on my blog at some point. My husband and I run things similarly, but there are a few things more specific to us.

1. My husband and I are both VERY moody and our moods tend to match. If he's depressed, I can't maintain a good mood and vice versa. So it is very much in both of our interests to keep the other one happy. This leads to a delicate power dynamic.

2. We each have certain Deanships within the marriage. Social obligations are largely my job, he takes care of financial stuff and fixing up the house. He decided when it was time to get a TIVO, I painted the bedroom blue. He makes sure most of the bills get paid, I hire and fire the housekeepers and make sure they do a good job. I buy art, he buys major appliances. Yes, these fall onto typical gender lines. But he's a financial whiz and I'm a more creative type, so we try to play to our own strengths.

CC

[Barbara Preuninger]

I noticed that no one took on my argument talking about "monarchy v. democracy". A very non-bitter, pleasant post, I might add. And I was really hoping for an honest disagreement to that particular argument.

Hmph.

Well, I'm still wondering: how do we get by in the U.S. when we have 3 branches of government designed to balance each other out? There's no "one person" who gets to make "the final decision", is there? At least not about every matter. And if it works OK on a large scale, then how much easier is it between two individuals?

[j0]

My husband and I also do things along these same lines. One important thing you touched on, HF, was the recognition of how critical it is that the resolution of the problem is more important than "winning" the argument, whatever it is (which is sort of ironic for a couple of lawyers, but then I've always been a resolution-oriented attorney, not a scorched earth attorney). Which is why a quasi-consensus decision making amongst equals is, in my opinion, far superior to an approach when one person always has the ultimate decision making power - as discussed in your earlier post. If someone is used to always 'winning' any debate, not only are they going to be less likely to listen to other views, but the one who always 'loses' stops feeling the need to justify their point of view, b/c their point of view doesn't matter.

As a side note, a funny thing my husband & I have discovred over the years is that we are far more likely to lose our tempers if we are hungry. So whenever one or both of us starts getting snippy we just say "time for lunch!" and usually if we couldn't agree on a solution before, we usually can after, assuming we can even remember what it was the aggravated us in the first place. The power of breaking bread - it works, even after over a decade together.

[AndiF]

One aspect of a marriage where one person is always has the final authority that rarely gets considered is the how unfair it is to the spouse who is always ultimately responsible for making decisions. I've been married for 34 years and our biggest fights haven't been over one of us insisting on a decision but over one of us feeling that the other person was abdicating his/her responsibility to be a part of the decision.

What's more, saying that one person will always have the final say means that there is less of an incentive to make the sometimes difficult effort of working toward the best solution.