Coercive Control Field Check / REG / REG-3
REG-3
Rules About Housework and Domestic Labor
Definition
Assignment, inspection, or punishment related to cleaning, cooking, childcare, or other domestic tasks that go beyond ordinary household negotiation.
How it operates
Detailed instructions about how and/or when tasks must be performed, inspections, and punishment for perceived shortfalls.
Function
Enforce a hierarchy of domestic labor and keep the target occupied under continuous assessment.
Harm
The exhaustion of time and energy that might otherwise support autonomy or exit.
Why this is coercive control
Ordinary requests for shared household contribution without surveillance or penalty. The conduct here enforces a hierarchy of domestic labor and keep the target occupied under continuous assessment.
Constructed example
“The house gets cleaned on Fridays before I get home.”
Fictitious. Written to illustrate the behavior. Not a case.
Crossman & Hardesty 2018; Pence & Paymar 1993; Stark 2007.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Stark, E., & Hester, M. (2019). Coercive control: Update and review. Violence Against Women, 25(1), 81-104.
- Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. Springer.
- Fontes, L. A. (2015). Invisible chains: Overcoming coercive control in your intimate relationship. Guilford Press.
- Dutton, M. A., & Goodman, L. A. (2005). Coercion in intimate partner violence: Toward a new conceptualization. Sex Roles, 52(11-12), 743-756.
- Crossman, K. A., Hardesty, J. L., & Raffaelli, M. (2016). “He could scare me without laying a hand on me”: Mothers’ experiences of nonviolent coercive control during marriage and after separation. Violence Against Women, 22(4), 454-473.
- Serious Crime Act 2015, s. 76 (England and Wales) (controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship).
- Cal. Fam. Code § 6320(c), as amended by 2020 Cal. Stat. ch. 248 (SB 1141).
Forums that enumerate this family
A statute that lists a tactic is not a finding that the tactic is present.
© 2026 Carisa Carlton.
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: REG-3. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.