Week 11: Transitions in Marriage: Power Realtions and Children

The family is a unit that has to work together. The family isn’t just the parents and then the children. They have to rely on each other and allow each other to help, lift, and nurture. In the article “Who is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families” by Richard B. Miller he discusses multiple functions of a good functioning family. One, parent’s are the leaders. Two, parent’s must be united in their leadership. Three, the parent-child hierarchy dissolves when children becomes adults. And four, the marital relationship should be a partnership: including that husbands and wives are equal, husbands and wives have different responsibilities, but they still function as equals, a husband’s role as patriarch gives him the responsibility to serve his wife and family, husbands and wives work together as partners.

Parent’s have to responsibility to teach their children and their children should respect them as their parents. But a couple can not be successful parent’s if they are not unified themselves. In an address by Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he says “…at creation of man and woman, unity for them in marriage was not given as hope, it was a command! … Our Heavenly Father wants our hearts it be knit together. That union in love is not simply an ideal, it is a necessity”. If you can not work together on normal every day activities then it will be impossible for you to work together on big life changing decisions. Unity in a marriage is vital to it being maintained and strengthened over time. And as Richard B. Miller says “…issues about power is predictive of marital problems” but also that “ happy relationships are most likely to occur in marriages where the couple shares power and has a true partnership”.