I am taking a childhood development class this summer and we were talking in the last lecture about authority and discipline, how to exert it and when it is being done to a reasonable and effective degree and when it is being abused. I was typing up my notes last night and it got me thinking about Bella and Edward, mostly about the differences between parental authority and love and romantic authority and love and how the biggest difference is the balance of power, why it exists, why it is important and how it is exerted as well as the level of dependency
In the ideal model of a parental relationship the balance of power is unequal. The parent is both a caregiver and an authority figure. The reason for the former is obvious. When a child is born they are wholly dependent on their parents. They rely on their parents to provide them with nourishment, safety, care when they are sick and perhaps the most overarching, love. They can’t even control their bowel movements. This is an exceedingly important stage of development that affects a child’s entire outlook on life and their behavior well into adulthood. This stage of life was defined by Eric Erikson as trust vs. mistrust.
This balance of power continues as the child gets older. The parent must protect their offspring. When the child reached adolescence they start to question and rebel against that authority. Because of the balance of power is uneven, the parent is the one who decides whether this is warranted and must discipline their child when they go against them. This societal principle is not questioned because it is assumed the parent knows more than the child as well as knowing their child on an intimate level and knowing what they can and can’t handle, what limits they will push and which limits should not be pushed. For instance, a parent may make an executive decision that their child can stay out until eleven o’clock at night because they know their child is trustworthy and will not abuse that trust. On the other hand, they may decide to veto that child’s request for a motorcycle because their job has caused them to see many, many children be injured or killed in motorcycle accidents. These rulings are more or less law in their house and not to be questioned or broken (i.e.: “As long as you live in my house you will live by rules” or “I am your mother and I make the rules. If you don’t like them, that’s too bad.”).
Again, the reason for this relationship model is based on the fact that the parent knows best. Another significant reason for it is that they are intrinsically responsible for their children. Kids make dumb choices and when they do it is their parents’ who will have to bail them out. It is for these reasons that a parent is not only allowed but required to discipline their child when they act out. You broke curfew? You lose car privileges. You were caught drinking? You’re grounded, end of story. You went to Italy for three days without telling anyone? Like hell are you leaving the house for the next six months (although to be honest if I did shit like that I’d probably be shipped off to a Swiss convent).
When it comes to romantic love the balance of power is or should be equal. Each partner is or should be allowed to make their own choices and decisions. If the other partner disagrees they can express their concerns to them and try to dissuade them, but ultimately they need to realize that they can make their own decisions. The only exception to this is when their partner is trying to do something criminal or extremely dangerous.
Fans of Twilight like to claim that Edward knows better than Bella and as such his levels of protectiveness towards her should be heightened. This is not a one hundred percent invalid theory. Where it goes wrong is in the level that he exerts that protectiveness. Telling her that he thinks it is a very bad and dangerous idea to see Jacob? That’s fine. Destructing her property in order to prevent her from seeing him? Not fine. Effectively having her kidnapped? Really, really, really not fine.
But wait! The fans cry, She is in danger if she goes! Isn’t that an acceptable reason? No, it is not. This is because she is not actually in danger. Yes, if Jacob or one of the other werewolves lose control she could possibly get hurt like Emily did. However, that incident happened when Sam was the only werewolf not only present but in existence. This is relevant because if a werewolf lost control one of the other werewolves could easily morph and subdue him. This fact is particularly glaring because Edward allows Bella to get into this exact same situation with no hesitation. I am talking of course about Jasper.
It has been WELL established that Bella is a klutz to end all klutzes. This is a girl who has literally been told to be careful when she walks. The fact that it took her six months to bleed near Jasper is incredible. And the chances of it happening again are exceedingly high. The last time that happened she was very nearly killed and it is very possible that the next time she would not be so lucky.
And then there is the level of discipline. Bella speaks of being in trouble should Edward find out that she snuck off to see Jacob. When a partner does something their partner disapproves of it is quite reasonable for their partner to be angry. They may fight about it; they may even break up over it. But here is the difference: that partner should not be able to punish them for it. In the classic abusive model the partner will strike the disobedient one. In an emotionally abusive relationship the abusive partner may refuse to give the disobedient partner financial support (in these relationships it is very common that the abused is not financially independent and this is a big reason they often stay in the relationship). Simply put, a partner should not be able to tangibly punish.
We also have the fact that Edward’s authority is expressed in other ways. Most notably, he is the one who says they will absolutely not have sex until they are married. His reasoning for this is positively absurd. First he tells her that in his day they waited until marriage (this was very often untrue, premarital sex was frowned upon but it happened very often, particularly among men who would visit prostitutes). On the very next page when she argues that they are not living in 1917 anymore and the social norms no longer require that he tells her that when she is turned the times will become immaterial as they will be together for eternity. Which is it Edward? Are you bound by the societal expectations of your human years or are contemporary social norms irrelevant to vampires? They are contradictory statements and as such you can only pick one.
Even worse, Edward feels that he can force Bella to have an abortion and she is so afraid he’ll do so that she hires Rosalie as a bodyguard. In order to try and get her to abort the baby he goes behind her back and more or less pimps her out to Jacob, despite the fact that one of the main reasons Bella wants to keep the baby is because it is Edward’s child. This level of control goes beyond that of a romantic relationship. Such behavior is unacceptable in any relationship, period.
But Bella accepts and even enjoys the majority of the paternal roles Edward takes in her life while at the same time rejecting Charlie’s attempts to parent her. At best she sees them as equal such as in Eclipse when she equates Charlie refusing to let her go on a romantic getaway with Edward to Edward’s refusal to let her go to a werewolf barbecue. At worst, she sees Charlie parenting her as unacceptable. In Twilight she refuses to ask Charlie for permission to go alone to a far away city that she has never been to because she feels it would “set a bad precedent.” Are you fucking kidding me? That’s not a bad precedent, it’s just good parenting. Especially because when Bella later goes to a far away that she’s never been to before she gets separated from her group, gets hopelessly lost and then nearly gets gang-raped. If it weren’t for the fact that her stalker has more than his fair share of supernatural abilities she would have been. Charlie grounding her ass for taking off for a country six thousand miles away where she doesn’t speak the language, without informing anyone and not returning for three days as well as deliberately disobeying him in his ruling that motorcycles were too dangerous for her to ride (and remember that the risk of injury or even death was the REASON Bella disobeyed him) is utterly unreasonable in Bella’s mind.
In conclusion: the whole thing is abusive and fucked up.
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