Social Organization, Spousal Resources, and Marital Power: A Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of selected features of family and kinship structures on wives' power in marriage. Ethnographic data on over one hundred nonindustrial societies are employed to test the hypotheses that wives have more power in marriage in societies with nuclear rather than extended family structures, and in societies with matrilateral rather than patrilateral customs of residence and descent. Both hypotheses are supported. Residence and descent practices are particularly important predictors of wives' power on the cross-cultural level. These findings, interpreted in the context of resource theory, highlight the fact that organizational resources may be at least as important as material resources in the determination of conjugal power structures.