The Sovereign in Domestic Violence Re: Scarry

A lot of what we develop in this class is also addressed in my gender and human rights class. I feel like as I'm asking a question in one class, I'm answering one in another. Seeing these themes brought out in different contexts really helps my understanding what we're talking about- I often have no clue- because it becomes applicable to something I can see or care about.
I realized this today as we talked about Guantanamo Bay in my Gender and HR class. Although we've discussed torture before- we began to look at the relationship between domestic violence and state-sanctioned torture. Two themes keep coming back to me: The rights of citizenship and the power of voice and participation. I had a hard time reading about Scarry's voicelessness in pain until I stopped thinking about literal voice, (though I doubt this was her intention). These acts of torture are much more deep rooted than simply waterboarding. Pain for power is inflicted in so many ways in the domestic sphere and that pain is inaudible by many women- they lose language not only as a physical ability, but as a right as a citizen.
This got me thinking about the sovereign-torturer-tortured relationship from Foucault and found a really strong connection to violence in the domestic sphere. To assign (generalized and obviously not always true) titles, the woman is tortured by the male torturer. So then, who is the sovereign? Who is this being done on behalf of? I feel the sovereign is the cultural construction of the ideal American family and home. It has been created by government, media and culture, and it reigns supreme as the picture of the American dream; and female devotion to this is vital. Any deviation from this questions the assigned gender roles, and becomes an attack on the state. The female partner attacks the state in refusing to be a sexual submissive or burning dinner. In order to rectify the situation the torturer must reassert the dominance of the sovereign. I know these are generalizations etc, but just something I was thinking about...