Genimmcmahon at Ilyka Damen had a great post up yesterday about men, women, marriage, money, and housework. She writes:
My husband’s salary is now more than what we were originally pulling in together. In the past few years, I’ve sidelined at little things; real estate (briefly), Ebay, and now I’ve committed myself to art, and trying to get established as both a pop-surrealist and a fiber artist. Art doesn’t bring in money at this point, it costs money. And it keeps me up at night that I have no financial power in my marriage. My husband always claims that it’s OUR money. But, seriously, it isn’t. If he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or leaves me for someone else, I have nothing to fall back on. I would lose everything if it got ugly. I wouldn’t even be able to pay my first husband the lousy $43 in child support I’m obligated to pay each month.
Hence, I would assert that there is no way for the traditional arrangement of Man=Wage Earner and Woman=Mother/House Bitch to be egalitarian, no matter how we dress it up with phrases like “our money” or “community property state.”
There’s a lot to unpack there. But before responding, I’ll also link to Amanda’s post that got Ilyka started: Salaries and housework and the whine of entitlement oh my! The inimitable Amanda does a fine job of taking apart this rather frustrating article by a Dan Kadlec: When She Makes More Money than He. Kadlec:
Not long ago my wife started making more money than me. There, I said it. Don’t think it was easy.
The male ego is strangely fragile when it comes to who brings home the bacon. So, I’ve found, is the female notion of who rules the roost at home.
In adjusting to our shifting roles, my wife and I have had to confront a lot of financial and emotional issues neither one of us saw coming. Who knew a little extra income could be such a burden?
It doesn’t get much better, but Kadlec does make the sensible point that open and honest communication is vital to resolving these “emotional issues”. While I have precious little sympathy with his claims of a “strangely fragile” male ego, I’m unequivocally in favor of frank marital dialogue.
And just to complete this quartet of links, here’s one to an article both Ilyka and Amanda note: The Romantic Life of Brainiacs. The piece, written by one of our leading historians of marriage, Stephanie Koontz, refutes the conventional wisdom that educated, “career women” will have less satisfying marriages:
THE MYTH OF THE BITTER, sexually unsatisfied female college graduate has never been true. Surveys from the 1890s to the present reveal that college-educated women have always been at least as satisfied with their emotional and sexual lives as their less-educated counterparts. But until recently, it was true that women who completed the highest levels of education or landed high-status, high-paying jobs were less likely than other women to marry and have children. They were often perfectly happy with their choices, but the fact remains that many women did have to choose between family life and achievement in the public sphere.
Koontz points out that statistically, highly educated older women are more likely, not less, to eventually marry. Part of the reason, she opines, is changing attitudes among men.
…in 1956, education and intelligence ranked 11th among the things men desired in a mate. The respondents were more attracted to someone who was a good cook and housekeeper, had a pleasing disposition, and was refined and neat. By 1967, education and intelligence had moved up only one place, to number 10, and still counted for less than being a good cook or displaying neatness and refinement.
But…
A 2001 Journal of Marriage and Family paper found that in mate-preference surveys taken in 1985 and 1996, intelligence and education had moved up to number 5 on men’s list of desirable qualities in a mate in both surveys, ahead of good looks. Meanwhile, the desire for a good cook and housekeeper had dropped to 14th place in both surveys, near the bottom of the 18-point scale. And in choosing a spouse, males with a college degree rate good looks much lower in importance than do high school graduates. “In a high-achieving man’s definition of an A-list woman, the A increasingly stands for ‘accomplished”…
So, now we’ve really got a lot of things to unpack.
I often ask the female students in my women’s history class the following question:
How many of you were told to get an education specifically so that you “wouldn’t have to rely on a man”?
Percentages vary from class to class, but the raised hands average around 60-75% of the women in the course. I always ask the men the same question with the gender reversed, but that produces nothing but laughter. I’ve never met a guy whose parents urged him to “study hard so you won’t have to depend on your wife!”
Community property laws have been around for four decades. But as Ilyka points out above, even progressive divorce laws don’t offer equal protection to what she calls “house bitches” and what others prefer to call SAHMs (stay-at-home-moms). And the power imbalance isn’t just something that comes in to play if the marriage ends; Ilyka writes about being kept up at night worried about her own lack of financial clout in a marriage that is apparently thriving. And I hardly think that’s Ilyka’s unique hang-up; it’s something I’ve heard from a remarkable number of women. In the case of Dan Gadlec, it may apply to men as well.
First off, let me be clear that I am from the “blend everything” school of marital finance. And I don’t know if I get a silver star or not, but I’ve done it in each marriage. After each wedding, I always merged my finances with those of my wife. (My third and penultimate marriage was the only one with a pre-nup; that was at her father’s insistence to protect her assets from me, not the other way around. Pre-nups would never be my choice.) There’s always been one checking account, with complete financial transparency. Sometimes I made more, sometimes she did. The commitment to blended finances was not contingent on my being the “bigger earner.”
In my first marriage, there was very little money; we were both in grad school living on a TA’s salary. (Back in 1990, this was $1000 a month). But though my first, second, and third marriages all foundered early on, they never ended over money. There were plenty of other issues that caused them to fall apart. I’m told that quarrels over money end more relationships than fights over any other topic, and I’m prepared to believe it. It just hasn’t been my experience.
Yes, ending a marriage where one’s finances are all tied up with someone else’s is a problem. Opening up a new checking account under one’s own name, re-applying for credit cards, changing the title on the cars; been there, did that, over and over again. It’s expensive, it’s scary, it’s painful. (If I were a calculating sort, I’d figure I’ve lost something in the area of the low to mid-six figures, mostly on the third divorce.) And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’m going to get flamed for this, but I’ve always felt that separate accounts in marriage, like pre-nups, seemed, well, half-assed. Call me a romantic fool with a self-destructive streak, a mercurial ENFP Gemini, but I love the idea of marriage as radical partnership, in which nothing is held back.
My ex-wives were all college-educated. And the fact that our finances were blended didn’t mean that they couldn’t land easily on their feet after a divorce. Their job skills and their earning potential were such that they weren’t terrified to leave a bad marriage. And frankly, I’m glad of it. I would have hated the thought that someone would stay with me out of fear of financial insecurity; marrying educated, working women had, in a sense, a direct pay-off for me: it meant that I knew that if someone was going to be with me, they weren’t with me for my money or the security I offered. And while I have always been willing to share what I have, I dislike the thought of my money serving as a particular enticement to stay in an unhappy relationship.
Now, 17 years after my first wife and I lived on Top Ramen in UCLA married student housing, I’m in a marriage which is financially stable. We both work inside and outside the home. We both do laundry and shopping and chinchilla duties. My wife, who works in the financial world, handles most of the bill-paying. My money gets direct-deposited into our checking account; frankly, I haven’t the foggiest idea how much cash is in there right now. I’m only vaguely aware of how much we make a year, but I am clear on this: it is what we make. It is not what “I” make and what “she” makes. And by the time you average it all together, I suspect it’s pretty even.
In our current economic system, it doesn’t strike me as a viable goal to encourage total economic self-sufficiency for each individual. As we go through sickness and ageing, as we raise our children, as we navigate the vicissitudes of the global marketplace, the chances that we’re gonna end up partnered with someone who makes more or less what we do are going to be fairly slim for most people. Raising a family and maintaining a household on a single income is increasingly difficult, of course, despite the pleas from social conservatives that women should stay at home and families should reduce their economic expectations in order to make that possible. For many, that’s not only not financially viable, it’s downright unattractive.
I was raised by a single mother who saw her family as one source of happiness. She loved my brother and me very much, but she gave us the gift of making clear to us that we were not her raison d’etre. (I blogged this last year.) Not terribly surprisingly, I’ve been drawn to women who, while very different in a variety of ways, shared with my mother a belief that their own happiness mattered. My wife is a very strong woman who very much wants a family; she will be a marvelous, adventurous, spirited mother. Our future sons and daughters will be nurtured by both of us, cared for by both of us, cleaned up after by both of us. They will know that they are loved, but they will also know that their parents’ first commitment is to their individual spiritual growth, their second commitment is to their marriage, and their third is to the children themselves. That’s what I was raised with, and it’s what I want to bequeath to my children.
I have more to say on this, but need to wrap this post up.
I have no idea what the future holds for our marriage financially. I suspect we’re going to end up making a great deal of money. I suspect we’re going to give a lot of it away. That’s what we both want, and we have the skills and resources and faith to make it happen. And it’s going to be a “we” thing all the way.
My money gets direct-deposited into our checking account; frankly, I haven’t the foggiest idea how much cash is in there right now.
Wow. Talk about some serious privilege.
Just so I’m clear where the privilege lies:
Is it that I don’t know how much is in there, and my wife does, and thus it’s the male privilege of not having to pay attention to a task?
Or
Is it that I don’t really need to know how much is in there because whatever it is, it’s sufficient, and that’s class privilege?
Or did I hit the daily double of privilege? I’m not trying to be snarky; I was trying to illustrate that in our various division of marital duties, I’m practicing radical trust with my wife. She’s a financial wiz, it’s what she does for a living.
Hugo,
I thought it was her privilege. You don’t get to be in on the economic decisions.
Knowledge is power. You’re powerless. If she’s ripping you off, would you know? I’m not saying she is, I’m just talking hypotheticals here. I don’t want to screw up your marriage!
I’d say to Ilyka that she needs to get some insurance on her husband, and he on her. If something happens to either of them, the other could be in very bad condition. Making sure that both spouses get credit for credit is another important goal.
This isn’t about feminism, it’s about basic simple sane financial planning.
It’s hardly her privilege if it’s more work for her. I don’t fear being victimized or ripped off. Even if she were to do so, which she never would, so what? I’ve had houses and cars and retirement accounts come and go. In order to have the marriage I want, I have to practice radical trust, not some half-assed Reaganite “trust but verify.”
We make important financial decisions (cars, house, trips) together. There’s a lot of consultation. But the ebb and flow of our finances is something I am less interested in handling, and fortunately, it’s what my wife does well.
Assuming the various tasks of your marriage are fairly distributed, I’d say the privilege in that statement isn’t relative to your wife so much as relative to society–financial stability is a privilege. Having enough money to not have to worry about making the rent if I go out to dinner, or worrying about spending too much on coffee or whatever feels like a serious privilege to me, especially since it’s relatively new.
Hugo,
“Half-assed Reaganite ‘trust but verify’”? Great phrasing, but in being great, it shows the weakness of such sloganeering. What I am suggesting has nothing to do with Ronald Reagan and it’s far from being half-assed.
First, if something catastrophic were to happen to your wife, do you know where the passwords are for the accounts? For Quicken or whatever? What bills need to be paid each month, and what bills need to be planned for 6 months in advance? Where are the insurance policies? Whose name is all the credit in, or is it distributed? Where are the checkbooks? Sudden death or incapacitation can leave the other spouse with an extraordinary learning curve at a time when grief saps energy and hospital or funeral arrangements sap time. Even if you could pick it up in enough time, would you have that time?
Second, maybe you two are different. Maybe. Maybe you don’t need to continually “prove” to each other that you are trustworthy. Maybe you don’t need that constant reassurance to continually strengthen and develop your relationship. Maybe when something extraordinary comes along, you won’t need a constant series of proofs to allow you to take some action that might otherwise be questioned. What do I know? I’ve only been dating Nancy for 31 years as of today and I’ve only been married for 23.5-1 day as of today. I don’t have your experience with marriage.
But one of the major mistakes I see a lot of people make is in thinking they can “handle it,” whatever “it” is. Nancy and I go out of our way to demonstrate our trustworthiness to each other to act as a safeguard, so that if one of us were tempted to make a bad financial decision, the other would catch it. One of us might handle the job most of the time, but we’re both kept up to speed, both to catch errors, act as a form of support, and as being full partners in our marriage — and I believe handling finances is an important part of a marriage.
Third, you are an example to those around you. By blogging about it, you invite people to imitate you, whether you intend to or not. You and your lady might be very trustworthy, but what example are you setting for those in weaker marriages? I am in the process of helping save one family that permitted their finances to spiral out of control, much to the surprise of one of the partners. Were we not available to work with them, I believe this family would have been destroyed. Some marriages should not have been, and by the time that’s discovered, one spouse might find themselves in a terrible economic situation — a situation that might have been seen earlier had “trust but verify” been in place. Of course, the drug abusers or spouse abusers aren’t going to agree to “trust but verify” as you call it, which ought to be a warning sign in and of itself.
Maybe I take a really cynical view of the world. But I’ve seen enough marriages that have failed around me that I don’t think cynicism is such an undeserved stance.
I really hope you’re right, that you two are so strong that the willingly given reassurance isn’t needed.
Yeah, maybe you’re not good at finances, and maybe it’s hard work, but you’re a runner. You know that sometimes you have to do those intervals or fartleks or overdistance days because when the time comes, you’ll be stronger for it.
Rob, I do know all of that info. It is saved in several key places, and I know passwords. You’re right that that’s vital.
I appreciate that I may be a role model for some, but I can’t argue for a system that I don’t use.
When I’ve been single, I’ve managed money just fine, thanks; were I (God forbid) singe again, I could do it in a heartbeat. My wife is happier than I am to do it, just as I am often happier to do laundry.
At least you are involved somewhat.
Ask yourself this: if the situation were reversed, would you consider your spouse to be oppressed?
Funny, I brought up cake cutting on some blog last week and then they used the same example on Numb3rs.
I’m with djw; the only privilege I see here is the class privilege of not having to worry about how much is in your checking account because you know there’s no risk of not having enough there.
I would have hated the thought that someone would stay with me out of fear of financial insecurity; marrying educated, working women had, in a sense, a direct pay-off for me: it meant that I knew that if someone was going to be with me, they weren’t with me for my money or the security I offered.
For the first and possibly last time, I’m sorry you aren’t flooded with MRAs anymore, because I would have loved to see them try to find a way to say that women are better trapped in a relationship without coming right out and saying it.
They will know that they are loved, but they will also know that their parents’ first commitment is to their individual spiritual growth, their second commitment is to their marriage, and their third is to the children themselves.
Whoa.
This is so the opposite of the values I was raised with that I’m reeling from it. No judgement or anything — seems entirely workable to me — just, wow. Wow.
They will know that they are loved, but they will also know that their parents’ first commitment is to their individual spiritual growth, their second commitment is to their marriage, and their third is to the children themselves.
Hugo, I’m sorry, but you really have your priorities out of order here. You seem to think it’s a zero-sum game: that if you put your children’s needs first, you can never take care of yourself or your marriage. T’aint so.
I’m torn between snickering about your eventual wake-up call, and being creeped out at the thought that you would become a parent and stay this narcissistic.
Oops, I’m not done ! Did my first half come through?
ANYWAY
I agree about sharing the money in a marriage; details about who does what money chores aside, I find it troubling when married couples I know keep entirely separate finances (chiefly because, frankly, the women get screwed. The husband (in my friends’ cases- I know 2 such couples) makes more, yet everything is split 50-50, so the women are money stressed constantly, and “owe” theirhusbands money, plus they are usually doing ALL the housework and cooking.)
There is just too much in a marriage to be so financially separate. What about when children come? WHat about illness? What about unemployment? I think PART of the whole POINT of marriage is that you have decided to navigate life together, because it benefits both. Are you really going to CHARGE your wife or husband money when you carry them financially through a pregnancy, or a period of unemployment?
TO my mind, that just seems like a roommate situation.
Carrying through marriage is never a bliss without pains. Nowadays women are less likely to cook a good meal if ever.They are more inclined to have more social outings than relaxing at home. And yet they ask for a good living house!! Men are tended to be more kitchen oriented and keeping the house in order & neat while trying to make ends meet. Men are held back to the walls just in case if their kids are affected with a one parent situation, should the marriages doesn’t hold. Women wants to be pampered and expected to be treated exceptionally special. It isn’t easy when things don’t balance up, especially finance. If one of the partner doesn’t have the sense of value, it is bad enough. When two share the same spendthrift spree in a bad financial time, it is hell. Nowadays the female will tend to drift apart first claiming it is the man who couldn’t_this & that. Emotion flares & certainly living through years of the aftermath pain is left to be endured.
Well, then again if the marriage survives there is renewed strength & confident in the aspect of life bestowed to us from above. Even, should it breaks it gives us a more insight in life of what we should do and not do in line with the holy book.
Women should be women & man should be man just like the good country ways…….?
Condor,
Are you a real troll, or did Amanda’s fairy godmother create you as a joke?
Dennis, I channeled Condor.
Mythago, narcissism and spiritual growth don’t go together. I’m not making a point that many, many others don’t make. If you’re a believer, in any faith, your relationship with God ought to be primary — it’s the fuel that makes you a better parent, spouse, whatever.
I don’t know a lot of kids who tell me “I hate my Dad. He loved my Mom too much, and put too much energy into their marriage” or “My mom was awful; she and my father were devoted to each other above all else.”
If you’d like, I can cite you plenty of folks who will argue that our priorities ought to be:
1. God (or personal spiritual growth)
2. Our marriage or other primary romantic commitment
3. Our children
4. Friends and extended family
5. obligations to the world at large
6. Career
Call it narcissism if you want, but it’s a fairly comon order in contemporary family systems thought, especially for Christians.
And yet they ask for a good living house!!
Honest, I’m perfectly content with a dead house!
I’ll defend Condor’s post. Well, obviously, not really, but in his partial defense, if you click on his name it links back to an image of my absolute favorite Malaysian cookbook. Everyone who likes food should eat more Malaysian food.
I feel like I’ve gotten spam that’s sounded a lot like Condor’s comment:)
My parents, I think, put their marriage above me and my brother. And I’m glad they did! Kids are important, of course, but I know that I would have suffered had they not had the inclination to work on their marriage and relationship — if your parents aren’t happy, after all, it seems that there’s less chance of you being happy. I thank God that my parents had such a good relationship! Despite the perils of dating in the city, it gives me something to aspire to.
They’re at 31 years, yesterday.
My husband and I have seperate accounts and a joint account. Currently, we split everything 50-50. When we started, he made more money than I did, and I owed quite a bit of money in student loans and credit card debt. Intially, he paid out more than I did, because I was paying down debt. Within 2 years, we got to a point were were were paying 50-50. Now I make more money than he does. I’ll pay out my student loan this summer. At that point, we plan to go to a proportional scheme, where we each pay in something like 25% of our salary to the communal pot. My income is destined to go up at a much faster rate than his, so I will be paying more in, but not a higher percentage. Both of us have been (and to a large extent, still are) crappy money managers. We stay seperate to insulate the other from our individual spending tendencies. We pay the joint account first, and then slog through the rest of the month on our own devices.
This has worked well for us, and we chose to help each other out to make a purchase that either one desires but cannot afford alone. Our three account system has forced us to communicate about joint buying decisions, and how individual behavior can impact joint opportinites (if you are in hock to your eyebrows, you can’t help pay for a new stove when we need one..)
Keeping joint accounts is absolutely the opposite of what my parents always told me: they were always glad they kept their finances separate and thought it was the key to a healthy financial relationship. It certainly helped when my dad bought a new camera or something else my mom thought was frivolous; he was at least doing it with his own money, and not “wasting” hers. When it comes to family expenses, though, they both pay their share. They’ve been married for 31 years.
I never really looked at it the other way; I guess it just shows there’s no one-size-fits-all way to handle things.
I’ve been musing over this post since yesterday. One thing you wrote in particular made me a bit uncomfortable, “And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’m going to get flamed for this, but I’ve always felt that separate accounts in marriage, like pre-nups, seemed, well, half-assed.”
Mmmm… I don’t know about that. I’m all for emotional, spirtual and physical openness. However, I think the situation is a bit different with money. My happily married godparents always said seperate accounts were the secret to a happy marriage. My boyfriend and I plan on having one joint account in addition to two private accounts for each of us. That way, part of your money goes for things that you both use (saving for a down payment on a house, general bills and groceries). Our smaller, private accounts will be for other “personal” expenses, like gifts for friends, clothes, etc. Who knows if that idea will work out in “real life.” But I don’t think that a couple necessarily has trust issues if they choose to seperate their finances. It’s about balance. We trust each other to spend our money wisely, whether it’s in seperate accounts or divided ones.
I’ve watched my parents bicker about money my whole life. Part of that is due to my mother’s dependence on my father. He brings home about $90,000 a year, she a little over $20,000. That obviously won’t be the case with my boyfriend and I since we’re both pursuing similar careers.
I’m sick of fighting about money. I’m tired of my parents asking how much I save and spend. I want to avoid those kinds of fights in my marriage - the “why did you spend this much on clothes?” kind of fights. For part of my life, I want to have a private account, if only to get a taste of independence. And I like the idea of having one when I’m married, too.
I hear you, Mermade. Hence my use of the word felt. This is my instinct, and it’s certainly not binding. It feels half-assed to me, but I completely understand how others could disagree.
I don’t see anybody posting about this, so I’ll jump in.
I have made more money than my husband since day 1, we have blended finances, he has worried that he’s a “just a leech”, and he’s the one who manages the bills. It’s been ten years and I expect there to be another 50 or so.
Then again, he’s been building a writing career and that pretty much requires a working spouse and the ability to stomach your own lack of income.
I suspect that the earner not being the bill-payer helps contribute to a more even marriage, sort of the way “one person cuts the pie, the other chooses a slice first” works. Also, being completely transparent when it comes to spending the money in question. He and I both get an “allowance” and we clear large purchases with each other regardless of what they are.
I’m a bit disappointed that my cooking skills (I have no housekeeping ability to speak of) have slid to #14. You can save a lot of money by cooking from scratch, it tastes better and it’s healthier. And it’s fun! But maybe that’s just me…
We’re another one of those joint/totally transparent households. It’s been that way when I made the money, when we both did, and now: he makes it, I spend it (bills, taxes, savings.) and I think carlavii’s point is an interesting one. We discuss big purchases. We don’t really do the allowance thing, I guess because we’d rather save up our indulgences, in which case they go into the discuss pile. He knows where the info is. Works for us, just great, and was my parents’ system too. I can totally see how others might prefer separate accounts, but since we’re now basically a one-income household, there ain’t much point.
Interestingly enough my mom had to go back to work, once we were all in school, not because my dad wouldn’t support her, but because she needed the feeling of independence a paycheck gave her. Come to think of it, their marriage started the same way, with her working and him going to school. But it still all went into the same pot.
If raising kids to be good people and citizens is the point, I think seeing to yourself first is absolutely the right thing to do. Children should be loved and cherished, but they should also know that the world doesn’t revolve around them. And to teach them that when they grow older, they don’t have to lose their selves to have children.