About whether or not one of them was more dominant or more pathological....
I don't think we know enough to make informed conclusions, other than they were equally aware of the abuse, both participated, and neither could possibly have felt any remorse whatsoever about the incalculable damage they were doing to those survivors over three DECADES.
One big 'ole clue, though, is extremely telling, and that is the fact of a 24-25 year old man with a college degree choosing to pursue a16 year old high school girl.
According to her sister (grains of salt), this was a girl being raised in a strict "religious" household who wasn't allowed to date. If that's true, how well could she possibly have known him, or even THOUGHT that she knew him? He supposedly promised to give her everything she could ever want. What did that mean to her, beyond simply the opportunity to escape her family?
Whatever fantasy sugar plums were dancing in her head, the core reality IMO was that he deliberately chose someone who couldn't be his equal, which again IMO means he chose a girl, not a woman, so he could be in control.
Beyond that are questions . ..
Is it relevant that he in fact seemingly didn't marry her of his own volition? They could have applied for a marriage license the day they arrived in Texas, but didn't, and didn't marry until they were dragged back to WV (allegedly for that purpose).
Also verifiable: the wholesale neglect of their finances and homes began early on, certainly by 1997.
Survivor #1 was 9 years old in 1997. She was 11 and had just finished 3rd grade when they moved to a remote rural area, where neither she or her siblings were allowed to attend school, and where they began to be "disappeared" altogether into a house.
We also know that survivor #8 was sexually abused in some fashion for at least a year, from the ages of 11-12.
Is the timing of their move to seclusion when survivor #1 was 11 a coincidence, or an indication of what might have been the beginning of sexual predation by the man-monster that one or both of the monsters was afraid might be revealed?
Whose choice was it to move away from the older children (to the double wide, presumably), and what motivated the choice?
Monster-man began sexually abusing survivor #8 almost exactly one year after the first trip to LV for the renewal of marriage vows. Is it possible there is a connection between his (possibly serial) sexual abuse of survivors and the very unusual frequency (and dates) of those marriage vows renewals?
And, about bringing all the survivors on those trips to LV. It is impossible to believe the monsters brought them along for any altruistic purpose. So why bring them? Perhaps they were afraid of someone escaping if all the survivors were left on their own, or of the survivors joining in to make so much noise they might be rescued.
Or....(or an and/or): they brought the survivors to torment them psychologically. Here is the big wide world --full of magic and marvel and food and showers and laughter and fun and semingly kind people- that you will be allowed to see only when we allow you to see it, but that you will never be allowed to join, but it's more satisfying that you know what you are being denied.
And....has anyone thought about incredibly cruel it was of those monsters to force the survivors, especially the teenagers and adults, to celebrate ANYONE's marriage, given that they were all being denied the opportunity to even have friends, much less to date and fall in love and marry?
They were ordered to smile and dance and clap to celebrate their torturers, to celebrate their torturers having what they were all being denied, and to do all this in the name of "love."
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Last, almost related thought (
) about her seeming obsession with Disney stuff.
One possibility is that in fact her obsession didn't derive from her own interests, but because she was aware it infantilized her, which she may have thought would keep her husband interested in her.
