The home: between love and control

The home: between love and control

For many, home is the sweetest word in the dictionary. It’s synonymous with refuge, a warm embrace, a space where the wounds of the outside world heal. But what happens when home becomes a center of domination and control? Home, which should be a bastion of unconditional love, is often built on power structures that confuse affection with possession and care with supervision and harassment. Through the ideas of authors like Esther Pineda, Coral Herrera, and Carol Gilligan, we can explore this complex reality to imagine and build a new kind of home.

The first structure of domination that most of us have experienced is the patriarchal family. We have been taught to believe that hierarchy is natural: the father as leader, the mother as caregiver, and the children in a position of submission. Esther Pineda, in her work on domestic violence, has pointed out that “patriarchy is based on male superiority over female, and of elders over younger members, being a structure of domination that is expressed and reproduced in the family.”¹ This means that the home is not only a haven of affection, but also a school of power, where gender roles and dynamics of submission are learned and internalized from childhood. Love within the home is thus conditioned by obedience, and affection sometimes becomes a tool for maintaining the established order.

Added to this structure of domination is a powerful and deceptive myth: romantic love. We grew up with fairy tales and movies that promised us “true love” and that a prince would come to save us from loneliness and give us eternal happiness. However, as Coral Herrera explains, romantic love is a social construct that prepares us for dependence, not freedom. ² It teaches us that sacrifice and suffering are synonymous with love, that we must find completion in another person, and that passion justifies everything, even control. In the trap of this dependence, the home becomes a space where insecurities and jealousy are disguised as protection, and individual freedom is sacrificed in exchange for an unattainable ideal.

Unfortunately, when love is confused with control, the consequences can be devastating, especially for the most vulnerable. The home, which should be the safest place, is often where child abuse and intergenerational violence are perpetuated. Esther Pineda emphasizes that the home, being a private space, allows “violence to remain hidden and be transmitted from one generation to the next.” ³  The lack of equality in the patriarchal family and the normalization of dependency in romantic love create fertile ground for verbal, emotional, or physical violence to become commonplace. “Home” ceases to be a space of love and becomes a painful cycle of domination.

But this situation can change. We can reconfigure intimacy, and the path to achieving this lies in the ethics of care. As psychologist Carol Gilligan proposed, care is not just an action, but a moral framework in which people understand themselves in relation to others. ⁴ Unlike a morality based on justice and abstract rules, an ethics of care focuses on empathy, mutual responsibility, and responding to the needs of others. Reconfiguring the home involves abandoning hierarchy and possession to embrace equity. Intimacy must be built on the foundation of mutual respect, the freedom to be oneself, and unconditional support.

Ultimately, transforming the home means healing the wounds of patriarchal domination and breaking free from the chains of romantic love. It’s not an easy task, as it involves deconstructing years of social conditioning. But it’s a necessary path. The home has the potential to be a space of liberation, where love is understood as an act of freedom, a constant support that allows each member to flourish. A true home is not one where control is exercised, but one where each person feels free to be, to love, and to belong.

References:

1. Pineda, Esther. Machismo y violencia de género en Venezuela. Cita de la página 45.
2. Herrera, Coral. La trampa del amor romántico. Cita de la página 78.
3. Pineda, Esther. Machismo y violencia de género en Venezuela. Cita de la página 102.
4. Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cita de la página 64.