The joke used to be that some women went to college to get their M.R.S. — that is, a husband. In sheer economic terms, marriage was long the best way for a woman to get ahead. But a study by the Pew Research Center finds that there’s been a role reversal when it comes to men, women and the economics of marriage.[Emphasis added by fascinated superhero.]
The study compares marriages in 2007 with those in 1970, when few wives worked — and it’s no wonder why. Until 1964, a woman could legally be fired when she got married. Even a woman with a college degree likely made less than a man with a high-school diploma.
“When you think about it from a guy’s perspective, marriage wasn’t such a great deal,” says Richard Fry of the Pew Research Center. “It raised a household size, but it didn’t bring in a lot more income.”
Four decades later, it’s men who are reaping rewards from a stroll down the aisle. Many more women are now working, and in a greater variety of jobs. Add to that the decline of gender discrimination, and women’s median wages have risen sharply in recent decades* even as men’s have remained stagnant or fallen.
On top of this — for the first time ever among those age 44 and younger —- more women than men have college degrees.
The Pew study also finds that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be married. It didn’t used to be that way.
It’s all turned the marriage market on its head.
“We found that increasingly, women are more likely to marry husbands who have lower education levels than they do, and lower income levels than they do,” says D’Vera Cohn of the Pew Research Center. From 1970 to 2007, husbands whose wives earned more than they did jumped from 4 percent to 22 percent.
/snip/ “I think [the notion that men “should” earn more]Â is really an example of an outdated idea,” says Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Coontz says that in a 1967 poll, two-thirds of women said they’d consider marrying a man they did not love if he had good earnings potential.
“Now, women have a completely different point of view,” Coontz says. “They say overwhelmingly — 87 percent — that it’s more important to have a man who can communicate well, who can be intimate and who will share the housework than to have someone who makes more money than you do.”
The numbers might be there, but the man-earn-money culture isn’t yet.
“The tension really surrounds this notion of, ‘I’m the man, so I should be providing,’ ” says Steven Holmes, a freelance photographer in Northern California. He makes far less than his wife, a business adviser for IBM, and often finds himself holding back in discussions about spending money.
“Because I have this guilt that I feel like I am not an equal partner,” Holmes says, “I will let her make the decision, even though I might have had a different opinion.”
While some still wonder how anyone (especially perhaps a feminist) could still, um, buy into such an outmoded patriarchal model in which women are basically property, well, look how — measurably — far we’ve come. But on an individual-couple level, it’s fascinating to me that what seems to persist is this pay-to-play notion that one’s say in the relationship is weighted by income. Tell me, readers: to what degree has this been your experience? And, bonus question, how much does it annoy you that even NPR calls higher-earning women Sugar Mamas?
* Of course, women still make only 77 cents to a man’s dollar and are more likely to take time off from or cut back on work to take care of children.
Increased focus on–and longer trajectories of–career development
It’s an interesting topic. Among my own friends–many of whom have been married and divorced at least once–the major obstacle to marriage seems to be disenchantment with the institution itself, although I’ve also noticed that even the vehement nay-sayers seem to soften around the issue when their partners want to get hitched. It seems that, even if individuals are ambivalent about making it legal, our society as a whole is still pretty fixated on the idea–or else books like Ms Seligson’s would not exist.
I turn to you, reader: Is there a real difference between living together (or dating someone long-term without cohabitating) and getting married? If so, what do you think it is? And has that made you more, or less, interested in marriage?
Filed under: Advice — posted by Breakup Girl @ 9:34 am
MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn†columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.
This week Lynn answers a gal who Needs a European Vacation because she’s crushing hard on a German athlete who was only in town for a few weeks.
He’s a professional European basketball star — 6’5â€, 8-pack — with an MBA in business finance. I shouldn’t need to get over him, because technically, I’ve never been under him. But I still can’t seem to shake the fantasy, and it’s driving me nuts.
Filed under: Advice,News — posted by Chris @ 3:21 pm
Have you ever lied that you have cancer to get out of a relationship? What if the relationship is already pretty out-there, as in the case of the 19-year-old lad dating the wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister? Young Kirk McCambley told Mrs. Robinson (yep, that’s her name!) he had testicular cancer to end the affair.
“A white lie that is okay to tell is one where what you are really doing is trying to preserve the other person’s feelings. A whopper is where you’re just trying to not even deal with this at all. You’re trying to save yourself,†says Lynn Harris, co-founder of the relationship advice website BreakupGirl.net.
Read the article here and tell us your own breakup whoppers!
Filed under: Treats — posted by Kristine @ 11:26 am
The really rather cute Peter Backus, a Ph.D. candidate in economics in England, has boldly attempted to solve one of the great mysteries of the universe, otherwise known as “Why I don’t have a girlfriend.”
To do so, he employs The Drake Equation, which “is used to estimate the number of highly evolved civilisations that might exist in our galaxy,” he writes. “I have used this approach to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. The results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.”
The equation was developed in 1961 by Dr. Frank Drake at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. The equation is generally specified as:
G = R • fP • ne • fl • fi • fe • L
where G = The number of civilizations capable of interstellar communication R = The rate of formation of stars capable of supporting life (stars like our Sun) ne = The average number of planets similar to Earth per planetary system fl = The fraction of the Earth-like planets supporting life of any kind fi = The fraction of life-supporting planets where intelligent life develops fc = The fraction of planets with intelligent life that are capable of interstellar communication (those which have electromagnetic technology like radio or TV) L = The length of time such communicating civilizations survive
where G = The number of potential girlfriends. R = The rate of formation of people in the UK (i.e. population growth). fW = The fraction of people in the UK who are women. fL = The fraction of women in the UK who live in London. fA = The fraction of the women in London who are age-Âappropriate. fU = The fraction of age-Âappropriate women in London with a university education. fB = The fraction of university educated, age-Âappropriate women in London who I find physically attractive. L = The length of time in years that I have been alive thus making an encounter with a potential girlfriend possible.
With me so far? I am now going to attempt to apply Backus’ equation to my chance of finding a man in New York — with the following caveats. (more…)
A steaming cuppa joe and a little righteous indignation make for a stimulating morning, which is why I do all my blog-reading before noon. In other words, I was all prepared to be annoyed by this Lemondrop post — “Hey Ladies, Can You Stop Doing This on Dates With Me? Thanks†— but I have to say, Redacted Guy gets it mostly right. Most of his first-date tips spring from simple good etiquette — don’t be snippy with wait staff, don’t keep checking your cell phone — and some are perhaps targeted to the clueless amongst us, male and female, who can’t pick up subtle clues about when it’s time to move on.
I appreciate that the palpable exasperation behind this list of “don’ts†doesn’t translate, as it so often does elsewhere, to gender-flaming and meanness.
So! In that spirit of learning and not just griping…what are your top out-on-a-date “don’ts�
Now available, Roxxxy, is the customizable female version of TrueCompanion.com’s, sex robot line….Owners can choose Roxxxy’s race, hair color and breast size all to their individual liking, as well as, one of five different programmed “personalitiesâ€, designed to engage the owner in conversation. Inventor Douglas Hines [who says he was inspired by September 11: “everyone needs a companion”] was quoted at the expo as saying, “She can’t cook, she can’t clean, but she can do almost anything else, if you know what I mean.â€
Great. Can she RISE UP AND DESTROY HER HUMAN CREATORS?
“…Rescued My Sex Life.” Here we have an example of a title that will get BG reading. Add the byline Diane Farr — she of superawesome tough-and-sweetness on Rescue Me (also, Numb3rs) — and I’m not looking away.
Farr wrote a nice essay in this month’s Marie Claire (put it onLINE, you guys!) about how utterly harmless, goal-less, going-nowhere-but-still-fizzy flirtation on the set of Californication — including but not limited to getting paid to make out with David Duchovny over and over and over and over … I’m sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so she makes out with DD and exchanges sweet-nothing-at-alls with ScruffyCute Craft Services Kid, and all of a sudden she remembers that there IS sex life after three kids under the age of two.
“The days pressed on, and between makeouts, David and I said the same cute, cuddly lines to one another over and over for various camera angles, further reawakening the girly laughter that had often escaped me pre-babies. I’d go a round with David, then go chat up Work Crush [still wearing Hot Dress from Wardrobe], and after two minutes, I’d feel guilty, call my husband, and flirt with him, too. He didn’t know why I was so full of laughter, nor did he care. ‘You’re funny and sexy, and I really missed that,’ he said. And like that, I was his girl again.”
Nicely played, Ms. Farr. It’s so important — whether you’re taken or single — to live life on the Flirtation Continuum. Not to lead people on; not to go where you shouldn’t. But to allow yourself to connect with (most of) the full spectrum of feelings and connections between people, to remind yourself you still got it, to feel like the world is still full of buzz and sparkle and possibility, for all your relationships.
She should know, though, that Duchovny was, very likely, thinking of me.
Breakup Girl
is the superhero whose domain is LOVE or the lack thereof!
Her blog combines new comics, observations and dating news with
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More on marriage: You know how some folks get all, “Ooh, ooh, that will UPSET THE BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE!” when they hear, stop the presses, that she earns more than he does? Well, welcome to planet topsy-turvy, because more and more, that’s becoming the norm.
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