The Family that Sticks Together is Matriarchal

Overall, when the husband lets the wife rule the roost, that marriage lasts longer than where the family is actually an autocratic patriarchy where the father rules every aspect of his family's lives without flexibility.

Yet this depends on the State: if it is democratic, then it does not care who rules the family as long as it does not violate first social rules and norms specific to it and second UN conventions and the laws enacted to comply with international law.

Locally, within a democratic nation, if a family is ruled by rigid adherence to a patriarchal groupthink and variance to the State's laws are noticed through runs with the police and social workers, then the State reserves the right to remove children from potential or on-going abuse. Separation and divorce may then be used as remedies to an untenable situation.

The father may even be labelled as a wife-beater or as an aggressor in a domestic abuse legal case. Or worse, the State may use divorce as a tool to punish the autocratic father, including child support and alimony judgments.

In contrast, when the wife rules the roost, while she is not less likely to become autocratic, however, the State is less likely to label her an instigator of domestic abuse and few people will consider her to be a husband-beater; the police will even ridicule the husband for exposing it.

Despite this, family cohesiveness is stronger in one which is run in a matriarchal manner due to the stronger bonds maintained between family members.

This may be because in an autocracy, threat of force is the main tool used to maintain social cohesiveness, which actually may result in a weaker bond between family members. In a matriarchal family, there are less threats of force made to maintain cohesiveness; rather, a benign form of subversive psychology is enough to strengthen social cohesiveness within that family.

Thus, the family that sticks together longest is matriarchal at its roots. While this is an idealistic hypothesis, research of families indicates that it may be the rule more often than Western society cares to admit.