Wives, Husbands, and Hidden Power in Marriage

Abstract

A recurrent theme in scholarship on gender and the family is the asymmetry between husbands and wives on decision making, the division of household labor, child care, and so forth. In this article, the authors tested to see if this asymmetry can be explained, in part, by taking into account the invisible power of men. Using data from the third wave of the British Household Panel Survey, the authors tested this by assessing whether agreement between husbands and wives on stereotypical men’s and stereotypical women’s issues increased when one of the spouses heard the other’s responses before answering himself or herself. The authors’ key findings are that (a) wives were much more likely than husbands to agree with their spouses’ known answers and (b) that this remains true even in conditions where wives earn more money or are more interested in politics than their husbands.