What does it mean for a couple to have privilege?

First, we need to understand what it means to hold privilege and this may be tricky to grasp because privilege can easily go unrecognized or unnoticed. So what does privilege mean, what does it look like, and who holds it, according to experts?

When we hold privilege, we have a social upper hand over other people purely because of the circumstances we’re born into, not because of anything we did to deserve it. Our race and ethnicity, gender, social class, caste, age, sexual orientation, and faith are just a few examples of the groups we all belong to, and these are either associated with privilege or the lack of it.

The benefits of privilege exist at every level of society, from official laws and cultural expectations about what’s appropriate, all the way down to those fleeting moments when we come across strangers walking down the street. Not only does privilege mean that we have access to more resources, opportunities, and conveniences, we’re also free from the social judgment and discrimination that other people have to deal with.

However, when we have privilege, the preferential treatment we receive might become largely invisible to us. And just as we can have privilege as a separate individual, we can also have privilege with our partner because some couples have more power in society than others.