Dominance in Marital Decision Making in Women's Liberation and Non-Women's Liberation Families

Fourteen couples of whom the wife was associated with the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) and 14 “traditional” couples were interviewed using a modified version of the Revealed Differences Technique. The WLM-associated wives differed significantly from the control group in the dominance indices of “Speaks Last” (p < .001) and “Time Spoken” (p < .05) and in the content of responses to two of the ten interview questions. Analysis indicated that the WLM wives were more self-reliant, while the control-group wives were more passive and dependent. The two groups did not differ significantly on the “Speaks First” and “Decisions Won” indices of dominance and the conflict measures.