Alcohol use and its control in Finnish and Soviet marriages

The paper reports the results of a comparative study conducted in Finland and in Estonia. A representative sample of young couples were interviewed in both countries. Husbands in both countries usually drink more often than their wives and are less dependent on their spouses' drinking company. Wives are more likely to attempt to control their spouses' drinking. Drinking and its control are associated with the emotional relationship between the spouses, and the attempts to control are logically associated with the controlled person's frequency of drinking. The wife's attempts to control the husband's drinking are more a blue collar than a white collar phenomenon. Finnish women and men drink more often than their Estonian counterparts. Maybe as a result of the greater frequency of drinking, drinking in Finland is more family‐oriented than in Estonia. The Estonian culture seems more prone to informal control of the family members' drinking. These differences may be at least partly caused by differing alcohol policy climate in the two countries.