Domestic Power Dynamics Quotes

A husband who submits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed.

The American girl makes a servant of her husband and then finds him contemptible for being a servant

Especially on television, it's not so much a patriarchy; it always seems that there's a smart, strong woman calling the shots, and her doofus husband. In the sitcom world, it's almost a cliche that the women have the common sense, going back to 'The Honeymooners.'

As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them.

A two-parent family based on love and commitment can be a wonderful thing, but historically speaking the "two-parent paradigm" has left an extraordinary amount of room for economic inequality, violence and male dominance.

We know how powerful our mother was when we were little, but is our wife that powerful to us now? Must we relive our great deed of escape from Mama with every other woman in our life?

In domestic life, the woman's value is inherent, unquantifiable; at home she exchanges proven values for mythological ones. She 'wants' to be at home, and because she is a woman, she's allowed to want it. This desire is her mystique, it is both what enables her to domesticate herself and what disempowers her.

No man is boss in his own home, but he can make up for it, he thinks, by making a dog play dead.