Question

We sometimes think of marriage as a romantic adventure in which two people in love are always thinking of the other person and seldom if ever have any fights or arguments. Virtually anyone who is or has been married will tell you that it is not like that. After reading Chapter 10 in the Lauer & Lauer text, think of a marriage with which you are fairly familiar and analyze how power is shared in that marriage and what role conflict plays in that relationship.

Answer 1

As many say, marriage is seldom a bed of roses. It is rather a balancing act by two people who are determined to stay with each other.

Sharing of power in marriage is quite tricky. Most couples divide their responsibilities. Where one decides to share the household bills, the other may decides to take on the loan EMIs. This is fair enough on both, but at times, in certain cases, one of the two ends up paying all the bills. Hence this may lead to conflict. The person suddenly starts to get alarmed by the fact that she or he is the only one taking up the reponsibility whereas the other has a nice and easy life. Thats where the conflict starts to flare up. Similiarly, when it comes to kids, it should ideally be the responsibility of both the partners to take it up simultaneously. But in some (rather a lot of) marriages, this doesnt happen. It is considered the duty of the female to always take care of the child. In todays world, females also are mostly out of the house for occupation. This is where the conflict can start when the female partner starts expecting her male partner to take up certain responsibilities whereas the latter fails miserably in it as he may not be used to this set-up. So, marriage is basically a balancing act and it will work that way only.