This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 2:58 am and is filed under Marriage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Marriage is an interlocking, self-contained system. The behavior and the attitudes of one partner always stimulate some sort of reaction from the other. A slight half-smile, a lifted eyebrow, a quick wrinkling of the forehead, will beget some response, though not necessarily a verbal one. Even silence can be a forceful message. Neither spouse may be aware of the actions nor reactions, for these usually originate at the unconscious level. Much of the interaction between the two consists of what might be considered behavioral reflexes, manifested without conscious knowledge.
In the course of time, as partners experience recurring patterns of behavior in their relationship, certain predictable successions of events are established. The wife’s left eyelid may quiver almost imperceptibly when the husband has badgered her too much about how boring her parents are. After this sequence has been repeated a few times, they both “know” that if husband continues nagging, the wife will lose her temper and may walk out. At this point, the husband may say, “Let me make you some coffee,” to indicate that he is sorry and will change the subject, yet neither party is consciously aware of the nature of their exchange. In this situation they are an error-activated system; they are behaving exactly like the thermostat on a furnace-when it becomes too cold, on goes the heat; when it becomes too warm, it shuts off. The spouses govern each other’s behavior to maintain the expected or usual emotional temperature for their relationship.
After several years, this type of behavior pattern between two people appears to the skilled observer as constant and predictable -exactly as if it had been consciously planned and both parties were aware of it. This reciprocal behavior is to be found wherever two people have a close relationship. They may be business partners, a father and son, two homosexuals living together, two women working as nurses on the same ward, and so forth. Marriage has been studied more than other relationships and we are apt to forget it has much in common with all relationships.
We call this system of behavioral responses the quid pro quo.
Quid pro quo literally means “something for something.” In the marriage process, it means that if you do so-and-so, then I automatically will respond with such-and-such. It might be called “tit for tat,” or “point and counterpoint,” or “reciprocal behavior,” but some of these names imply nasty or opprobrious responses, whereas by quid pro quo we imply shared, or exchanged, behavior-much of it unconscious.
Regularly occurring patterns of interaction evidencing unspoken quid pro quo are obvious if one observes families carefully. In one instance, a family having a discussion in a psychiatrist’s office was photographed by a motion picture camera. During the short discussion, father, mother, and daughter crossed their legs one after the other fourteen times. Invariably, first the mother crossed her right leg over her left, then daughter did the same thing, and finally father, who was sitting in a chair opposite them, followed through with the same motion. This behavior on the mother’s part always followed a pronouncement by the father about what sort of action the family should take; in other words, it occurred whenever the father “took charge.” It might thus be said that whereas he was the titular leader, the mother was demonstrating by her nonverbal behavior that she had an equal right to lead a family movement-and was capable of doing so. None of the three was aware of the leg movement. Even when they knew they were “on camera” the members of this family, like most others, could not hide their nonverbal messages.
Manifestations of the quid pro quo are endless. For example, a husband insists that the spare bedroom be converted into a study for his use even though the renovation is expensive. Several days later, his wife engages a cleaning woman. Previously both had considered a maid too expensive. When the husband gets the bill for the maid at the end of the month, he goes into his now comfortable study, writes a check for the maid (even though he previously felt he could not afford one), lights a good cigar, and congratulates his wife on how clean the house is. Something-for something behavior has occurred-a quid pro quo-without spoken acknowledgment by either spouse. Yet this exchange of behavior is more than a single event. It also serves as a model for future exchanges between these spouses. It is part of the marriage continuum.
Soon after a marriage, both partners become conditioned to the quid pro quo pattern. They may not realize it, yet each informs the other of his response pattern by little clues-hints and innuendos which suggest what must be done to keep the partnership in balance. For example, when the husband wanted the bedroom made into a study, the wife may have responded with, «Yes, dear, with a study you’ll be able to get more work done.” The implication then was that he’d make more money and she’d spend more of it-perhaps by getting the maid.
The quid pro quo process is an unconscious effort of both partners to assure themselves that they are equals, that they are peers. It is a technique enabling each to preserve his dignity and self-esteem. Their equality may not be apparent to the world at large; it may be based upon values meaningless to anyone else, yet serve to maintain the relationship because the people involved perceive their behavioral balance as fair and mutually satisfying.
After the marriage (or any other human relationship) has been operating for awhile, the quid pro quo pattern becomes an unwritten (usually not consciously recognized) set of ground rules. The wife unconsciously knows that if she behaves in manner A, her husband will respond in manner B; and the husband unconsciously knows that if he behaves in manner K, his wife’ will respond with attitude L. This recognition can reach the conscious level, but it seldom does. One of the techniques for diminishing a destructive quid pro quo is to bring it from the unconscious to the conscious level. Later we shall demonstrate how to do this. Some quid pro quo are destructive and some are nourishing just as some laws are hindrances and some are helpful to societal health, progress, and growth.
Once the quid pro quo pattern has been established and accepted (no matter how bizarre the exchanges are), each partner can live from day to day with some sense of security because he mows what to expect from the other partner. Each has tacitly agreed to a behavior complex which he believes protects his own dignity, self-respect, and self-esteem in relation to the other party. Whether the actions are cruel or loving is irrelevant; both partners accept them, once the pattern is established. Later we shall suggest techniques for establishing a functional quid pro quo.
Under certain circumstances, the quid pro quo becomes destructive.
First, there may be a situation in which, from courtship, the spouses think they have an agreed-upon set of rules. After marriage, one or both spouses may suddenly reveal that they “didn’t mean it” and not accept the quid pro quo that the other spouse has felt were workable. For example, during courting days a young man spends much time with his fiancée. Immediately after marriage he ignores her in favor of his job. When she complains, he tells her he is only looking out for her welfare by working so hard, and is hurt that she is so “selfish.”
Second, one or both partners may be incapable of understanding the signals and therefore may ignore them. This may occur when there is enormous intellectual disparity between spouses, or a wide difference in background-resulting in different tastes, behavior pasterns, social habits, moral values, and so on-which causes much of both the spoken and the nonverbal communication to be as incomprehensible as a foreign language.
Third, one partner may break the rules after the quid pro quo has been consciously or unconsciously accepted by both. This is what occurs in the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Martha, the wife, breaks the rules by publicly discussing their imaginary son. Her husband, George, then proceeds to violate his share of their agreement and publicly humiliates her. Their “sharing” of an imaginary son gave them something in common. Now they will have to develop a new game; or if one or both will not, the marriage will be devoid of any but destructive qualities.
Finally, if the nature of the quid pro quo’s is such that it seriously limits the behavior, creativity, or growth of one or both spouses, then there is a premature freezing, or jelling, of the marriage which probably will result in one or the other spouse’s breaking away; or both will grow old together stuck in an emotional morass, which usually is characterized by a rigid, unchanging, negative relationship.
All of these examples demonstrate that acceptable quid pro quo’s can only be determined over a significant time span. Quid pro quo’s made within narrow temporal limits quickly become dysfunctional because they do not allow for the ever-present factor of change. Inflexible, no utilitarian rules for the quid pro quo are bound to become destructive because people and marriages change in the course of time. Spouses may (and should) shift their quid pro quo’s as the marriage grows older, even if doing so is temporarily upsetting, instead of allowing fear of change to dominate the relationship and keep them trapped in their fixed patterns.
When the quid pro quo ground rules are violated by either party, trouble begins. Such violations may occur when an unexpected outside influence pressures the marriage, or when there is a change in the behavior or expectations of one of the partners. The predictable behavior pattern is no longer predictable. Confusion and discord unbalance the partnership.
If one of the spouses violates the ground rules, the other one, without knowing why, feels that he has been betrayed. He now (often unconsciously) attempts to create a new quid pro quo which will protect his interest. For example, if a husband comes home from a business trip and finds that his wife, without consulting him, has invited her mother to live with them for two months, and that the mother is occupying his new study, he feels betrayed. The study is his, and no one in the family was supposed even to enter it. A quid pro quo ground rule has been broken by the wife. The way the husband responds here will depend on the nature of their relationship. He may react by insisting that the newly hired maid be fired. He may be surly and rude to his wife’s mother (although he agreed a long time ago to be always courteous to her even though he doesn’t like her). He may start complaining about how bad business is and insist on unreasonable cuts in the household budget. He may start nagging his wife, saying that his boss is angry because he hasn’t properly completed some work which he brought home. Thus he implies that he is failing at his job because his mother-in-law is in his study, and that his wife is to blame.
Diplomats recognize that the quid pro quo process also applies to relations between nations, as seen in the institutionalized behavioral limitation (a conscious quid pro quo) called protocol. Protocol may seem old-fashioned, ridiculous, or even humorous to someone outside of the diplomatic world, but it is very useful, enabling nations to observe a lawful, ‘” predictable system of behavior. Thus, as is well known in diplomatic circles, a violation of protocol conveys a significant message.
If the spouses’ verbal and nonverbal behavior did not occur redundantly, forming a pattern, each individual would have to learn about the other individual (or some aspect of him) all over again every time they met. Someone who is “highly unpredictable” may be interesting for brief periods of time, but usually is not the sort of person one would choose for a spouse. Unpredictable individuals are rare in our society. People noted for their erratic behavior (such as a few famous movie actors) actually are predictably unpredictable, and therefore the label is a misnomer. Nevertheless, their notorious multiple marriages testify to the fact that such people are hard to live with.
The occurrence of the quid pro quo action-reaction pattern is inevitable. In these exchanges the man and woman negotiate their total conjoint behavior, and at the same time each becomes acquainted with the other’s total personality. This is why a long and intimate courtship is desirable. The short or “good time” courtship, confined to wooing activities in which each attempts to appear as attractive as possible to the other, exhibits only a small percentage of the behavioral range of each. It is a common experience for someone to be shocked after marriage by the discovery that he has married a “stranger.”
Behavioral scientists have often observed this phenomenon in the case of individuals who indulge in extramarital sexual relations. The relationship with the mistress or lover resembles courtship. Each limits himself to a narrow behavioral and social repertoire aimed at pleasing the other. Often this pleasing repertoire consists precisely of kinds of behavior which are missed at home-those which the legal spouse seems to lack. In addition, there is the excitement of “mistress and lover against the world.” There are secret trips, sojourns at hotels under false names, and so on. The lover and mistress are certain that the affair is the high point of their lives. On the basis of this conclusion, they often divorce their spouses and marry each other. Then they really get to know each other, becoming acquainted with the entire range of conscious behavior and of quid pro quo exchanges. At this point, the former wife or husband may appear very, very desirable.
One of the functions of a long premarital engagement is to determine whether the interlocking patterns of behavior which will become regularized between the two individuals are acceptable to both. For example, individuals from two widely disparate cultures rarely marry, because they are not able to read each other’s signals and cannot properly label the kinds of behavior they are exchanging. They cannot develop quid pro quo. An Eskimo woman may be offended by a Frenchman’s attempt to kiss her, and the Frenchman may be equally puzzled and displeased when the Eskimo woman insists on rubbing noses. It is not likely that two with such differences in social background will end up as spouses; the fact that just this does happen on occasion is due to another phenomenon, which confuses the courtship (premarital engagement) situation. The two people will usually excuse each other’s strange or unacceptable behavior because of the “romance” and excitement born of novelty. If the girl wants to rub noses, the boy may see her desire as cute and inventive; but he probably will become irritated by it once they have decided to get married.
Quickie marriages, especially between young people, have the highest divorce rate. The two are attracted to each other by “romance”; and not until after the wedding ceremony do they learn that they just “don’t understand” each other. The cultural and behavioral patterns of husband and wife are often so different that each is unable to receive and understand (either consciously or unconsciously) the messages which the other sends. The two are unable to establish a workable quid pro quo. When they become conscious of failure, and frantically try to do “something” to ameliorate the problem, it often gets worse. A high percentage of annulments, desertions, and divorces occur in marriages in which the bride was pregnant. The man marries to fulfill his part of the bargain (”After all, you got me into this”) and having done so, takes off for other parts.
As has been suggested, the operation of the quid pro quo is largely unconscious. Indeed, it might be compared to breathing. The process of breathing is described by behavioral scientists as “institutionalized.” It works so perfectly that the individual doesn’t even think about it. If someone is told, “Do you realize you are breathing exactly fourteen times per minute and have been doing so for the last half hour?” his first reaction is to hold his breath. If he then tries to count his own rate of breathing, the regularity disappears. Usually the rate of breathing increases once it has been brought to consciousness.
In the same way marital rules and interactions often exist in an evenly working fashion without either spouse’s being aware of their presence. Indeed, should the spouses accidentally (not by mutual effort) become aware of their own rules, problems are introduced, just as breathing loses its regularity when brought to the individual’s notice. If John realizes that he does X in return for Mary’s doing Y, he may then for the first time attempt to see if they balance. If he concludes that he is receiving less than he is giving, he usually will try to alter the relationship unilaterally by deciding what a fair exchange is and trying to force acceptance of his view. Now if his spouse feels that she is being shortchanged, she will attempt to bring the behavioral exchange back to what, in her estimation, is fair. Each spouse acts unilaterally, and each concludes that the other considers himself to be superior and is trying to win the upper hand. At this point, the behavior of both becomes destructive.
Since a couple spending a whole day together probably will complete many thousands of exchanges during that period, it becomes obvious how quickly the destructive actions can increase and how the balanced, workable quid pro quo’s can soon be replaced by discord. Therefore, spouses must learn how to diminish the destructive quid pro quo and become aware of, and emphasize those that are functional.
A case which illustrates inadequate quid pro quo formulation follows.
John feels he may have to leave his wife, Mary, because there is a basic antagonism between her demands on him for attention and his passionate involvement in his chosen profession. Mary is often upset if John works late. If he is completely tied up in his job for several days in a row, she becomes irritable and behaves in a manner guaranteed to disturb him. If he takes her on a short business trip (as she usually wishes him to do) she becomes jealous when he devotes his energy and attention to his business associates; she is likely to make a scene, for example, just before he goes off to a conference or a business meeting. As a result, John has decided he will not take Mary on any more trips, and she therefore feels more left out than ever.
On one occasion, Mary makes a particularly urgent appeal for John to arrange to be with the family over the weekend and to take care of a number of chores about the house. He does as she requests, yet on Sunday evening she attacks him, accusing him of ignoring her over the weekend. John is startled because he believes he has devoted the weekend to Mary’s wishes. The next day, John sees a psychiatrist. During the session with the doctor John recognizes that even though he was at home for two days, doing what he had been asked to do, he hardly thought about Mary during the entire weekend, and gave her no personal attention. On the other hand (he remembers) he frequently thinks of Mary while he is at work, and particularly when he is away on a trip.
John further recognizes that he obtains enormous satisfaction (both personal and monetary) from his job and enjoys being busy. When he is with Mary and the family he does not feel useful, and becomes restless. Mary runs the house in her own way, and John, who is used to being in charge at work, becomes irritable and withdrawn. He has been interpreting her refusal to let him “run things” at home as an indication of her disapproval, and as negative behavior on her part.
John has failed to recognize that his wife’s moods and behavior largely depend on his acknowledging her as a capable homemaker and desirable wife, and that this acknowledgment must take the form not of doing something for her, but of an unequivocal personal demonstration that he loves and admires her as a person, and that she is as important to him as his work. This situation is complicated by the fact that Mary, like John, often thinks of their being together as an opportunity for doing projects around the house or with the children or with each other; by this attitude she unwittingly collaborates in John’s particular game. John’s reaction is that as long as he is going to have to work, he might as well work at his job (which he enjoys) instead of at household repairs and so forth.
Such a couple exhibits automatic, repetitious behavior which may be compared to that of an electronic computer which has been incorrectly programmed for a particular kind of data processing. The errors in the program cannot be rectified by the computer; they can be corrected only from outside the computer, by a human being feeding in new instructions. The computer itself does not observe its own mistakes; neither do most married couples see their own pattern; they are caught up within the system and are not able to look at themselves from a vantage point outside.
It is our view, however that some couples can look at their marital system from a new viewpoint, such as the quid pro quo theory provides, for example, and as a result come to understand their interaction in a way that they had not previously. Of course, in difficult situations, the aid of a third party is required.
