Articles by Author: Chase Amante

Who holds more power in a romantic relationship? The one who’s still pursuing goals and dreams outside of it, scientific studies show.

In another study that surprises absolutely no one, researchers have found that those with more relative power within a relationship sacrifice less for the sake of the relationship:

Romantic partners often have to sacrifice their interests to benefit their partner or to maintain the relationship. In the present work, we investigated whether relative power within the relationship plays an important role in determining the extent to which partners are likely to sacrifice. Drawing from both classic theories and recent research on power, we tested two competing predictions on the relationship between power and sacrifice in romantic relationships. We tested whether (a) power is negatively related to sacrifice and (b) power is positively related to sacrifice. Furthermore, we also explored whether the association between power and sacrifice is moderated by commitment and inclusion of the other in the self. To test our hypotheses, we used different methodologies, including questionnaires, diary studies, and videotaped interactions. Results across the five studies (N = 1,088) consistently supported the hypothesis that power is negatively related to tendencies to sacrifice in close relationships.

While this seems obvious – i.e., that the person who’s the “one-down” in the relationship ends up doing more of the sacrificing than the person who’s the “one-up” – I think it’s worth discussing a bit in-depth to understand just what’s going on here… and why.

In many ways, seduction is analogous to warfare. Yet men’s seduction – offense here – need not be ‘hostile’ towards women’s defensive ‘resistance’!

I’ve dived back into reading On War, Carl von Clausewitz’s masterful treatise on military action. I’d taken a break to read some fiction (such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s peak masculinity adventure stories) and a few other non-fiction books on various subjects, but now, like a band of pillagers that struck off temporarily to replenish its supplies before returning to the siege, I’ve wandered back.

Clausewitz speaks often about friction, his term for difficulties doing just about anything in war – a force that bogs down what should be simple maneuvers and plays spoiler to otherwise sound strategies. I’d like to write about how this relates to seduction too… but for today the topic is something else.

Because as Clausewitz talks about offense and defense, I see many parallels there to our topic of discussion here. In many ways, within a romance, the ‘offense’ is the efforts to seduce – while the ‘defense’ is the efforts to resist that seduction.

What I’d like to do is highlight some takeaways from Clausewitz that apply every bit to the romantic battlefield as they do the martial one.

After all, as they say, all’s fair in love and war, and the two fields have their similarities.