Grex Femme Conference

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Grex Femme Item 94: Breadwinner wives
Entered by mta on Wed Jul 8 17:40:11 UTC 1998:

I was recently chatting with a woman who is writing a book about "breadwinner
wives".  She's interested in the reasons for and social dynamics of families
who fall into this relatively recent configuration, and it got me to wondering,
too.

Do you know any families where the female partner earns more than the male
partner?
 Are they open about it?  
How do they feel about it?  
Was it a conscious decision or did it just happen?
What do you think about this kind of family setup?

5 responses total.

#1 of 5 by keesan on Wed Jul 8 20:53:00 1998:

We have friends who live on a farm.  The woman teaches school.  The man is
hoping to be a full time organic farmer, but so far the farm is more of a
social group than a money-maker, so he also does carpentry full time.  She
does not mind earning more of the money, but decided after two years that they
would have to be married for this to continue.  He cooks, she does not like
cooking but does the dishes and cleans up.  Her brother is currently living
with them and has turned the garage into a shop (he is a sort of mechanic).
He cooks separately (meat, they cook vegetarian).  One other man cooks with
the couple (vegetarian) and sleeps in a teepee.  I would call this a pretty
open arrangement, which nobody is at all ashamed of, and it sort of just
happened.  Both members of the couple are doing work that they enjoy and that
they are good at, and both of them are doing a great deal of good to other
people.  They all seem happy, and we always enjoy our visits there.
        Judging from the student enrollments in colleges nowaday, more women
than men are getting college degrees, so it may eventually be the norm for
women to earn more than men.
        Are you also interested in couples where the woman is more educated,
whether or not she earns more money?  We know one couple where the woman
teaches at EMU and the man does sheet metal work - don't know who earns more,
as union labor gets paid well.

#2 of 5 by clees on Thu Jul 9 06:19:45 1998:

If you're a librarian your SO is bound to earn more than you.
I'd go for a breadwinning wife relationship.
Heck, let me do the kids and householding.
I can tell you I even take pride in keeping house.

But best ways would be parttime jobs in which both partners could try to 
share the chores to be done.

#3 of 5 by gracel on Fri Jul 10 11:15:45 1998:

For at least 8 years I earned more than my husband, as a library assistant;
I used to tell people that I was supporting a husband and two cats.  For
most of that time we were in the not-new conventional situation of husband-
in-graduate-school, sometimes with TA income & sometimes not.

#4 of 5 by keesan on Fri Jul 10 22:57:26 1998:

I had a nice interview with Misti's acquaintance Randi, and mentioned that
my mother had worked full time when my father got sick (in the sixties).  He
apparently felt bad about it but we kids did not find it odd.  Are there any
women on grex who grew up not expecting to support themselves?

#5 of 5 by mta on Sat Jul 11 15:01:02 1998:

My parents tried to instill that expectation in me, but it never took.

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