Power in Relationships In the article 'Power and Two-Person Relationships', by Boulding K.E.

, it is said that in relationships, like friend and friend, father and son, person and country etc. there always stands power. Moreover, this power between them results in the domination of one of the these

associations. I agree with the writer at two points; the first is that in every family, there is a point that the relationship between parents and child turns to a friendship after the dominance of parents on their child. The second is that thanks to feminism, marriage is becoming more like friendship but it also makes the marriage shorter than it was. The first one which Boulding (1990) mentions in the article that even in a successful family, there has to come a certain point in the growth of the child when the dominance of the parent diminishes and a friendship relationship must supersede it. Also he says that, when child in young ages, domination of the parent is inevitable, but by time child will hold the power on his hands. When it comes to my point of view, during childhood, to decide on something is hard. Therefore, parents decide for their child. This means that until child grows up, parents have dominance on him. According to Mann, Harmoni and Power(2004) until reaching 15-year-old-age, young adolescents are less able to create options. They may not perceive the consequences of alternative, and measure the credibility of information from sources with vested interests. They could not realize the wide range of risks and benefits (para 1). In that ages, parents are more protective and children have tendency to use harmful things like drugs, alcohol etc., so that they put pressure on their child. Therefore, it is an unavoidable fact that father and mother become dominant. Moreover, when child grows, he gains his economic freedom, they have a personal budget so that he does not need his parents economically, he needs them as a friend . For example: when they start working, they are able to pay for everything they need, so parents' voice is going to decrease and children will ask things only as a friend; not like asking permission. By explaining another way, the reason why parents are dominant on children is that they hold economic power in their hands and as children

grow, they are going to lose this control. As a second thing, I also agree with Boulding's opinion (1990) which is that the rise of feminism, a very widespread phenomenon, marriage is becoming more like friendship, with a more equal distribution of power between the parties . This has many benefits, but it also leads to a certain instability, a rise in divorce, and a very painful allocation of children between divorced parents. In my opinion, today women are also working, this means that husband and wife have nearly the same power, making it easier for them to be a part of marriage; not like being servant for the marriage. For example, making contribution to the home budget is important for women, because they gain some power and they have right to speak. Thus, gaining power could cause a divorce. To give an explanation from the article 'Marital Disruption and the Employment of Married Women', Theodore(1990) says that the increase labor force participation of married women is responsible for the increased divorce (para 2). The reason is that women are progressively becoming more free, or in other words, becoming more powerful than ever, dominance of men is falling down and this gives women a tendency of getting divorce. If women do partially whatever they want, this may constitute cracks in the marriage because of the men's nature. Putting it in another way, when women feel free, they generally want to do many things at the same time, like hobby courses, etc. This may lead them to neglect their family . Consequently, this negligence might result in the court and this problematic progress might cause child to get damaged easily. In conclusion, I definitely concur with two opinions of the Boulding in the article 'Power in Two Person Relationships'. Both parent-child relationship and wife-husband relationship carry a huge power inside it, like other kinds of relationships. These relationships I mentioned, generally harbour at least some power inside which might create damages. The balance between them is so permeable and risky. Therefore, this should be built carefully.

References

Greenstein,T. (1990, August). 'Marital disruption and the employment of married women'. Retrieved May 20, 2012, from

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/352932uid=3739192&uid=2&uid=4&sid=5617

Mann,L. , Harmoni, R., Power, C.(2004, March 5). Adolescent decision-making: the development of competence. Retrieved May 20, 2012, from

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0140197189900778

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