To want to settle a generation gap argument: older (female) relative is saying women had to give up work when they got married?

I had relative who was a nurse in the NHS who had to leave her job when she married in the late 50’s.

Even if you could legally work in your profession, it wasn't socially acceptable to have a working wife in some circles, meant the man couldn't afford to keep her - still the case in some societies, though ironically in lower income groups.

AIgreed. lived in a very rural village until about five years ago and the only married women who didn't work were some of the Ladies (with a capital L) but more surprisingly most of the farmworkers' wives and some of those families were on their arses.

Women who were officers in areas of the civil service and in government bodies such as the British Geological Survey were forced to resign on marriage right up until the mid-seventies.

I left the world of newspapers in 2009 and I can honestly say it was the most sexist place I’ve ever worked. Once I had a baby there were lots of comments about me leaving now I’m a mum. I was features editor in a good job so why would I? 2 months after Mat leave they made me redundant.

DH was in a work meeting in about 1993 where merit pay rises were being discussed. One of the other managers (female) suggested that the only other man in the department should get a better pay rise as he had a family to support. DH was outraged.

@TheAlphaandtheOmega yes I experienced that too, it was common practice. And women were definitely expected to stop work when they had children in the 1980s.
I was in a management role, and the company pension provided an in-service widow's pension but nothing for a widower. When I queried this, I was asked why on earth would my husband want a pension if I died!!
And don't get me started on the sexual harassment, which was always just "banter" or a "bit of fun".
And the men who used to ignore the office phone so that I would end up answering and they could pretend I was their secretary.

It was normal to give up jobs but plenty of women did re-enter the work force in the late 1970's/ 1980's upwards and so your Aunt could have re entered the workforce if she wanted to. My DM left but re-entered in 1980 and worked up to Management.

The large nationally owned corporation I worked for back in the 70’s policy was that women had to leave once they got married! I saw so many female colleagues lives ruined when they left the job they loved and the independence that gave them. I remember being almost outcast when my boyfriend and I moved in together without being married. I was called into the office by my manager who said he had heard about my living arrangements and was aware I was ‘deliberately trying to circumvent the company rules!’ Life was made very difficult for me from then on. I applied for another job at a well known insurance company. In the interview I was asked if I was on the pill and whether I’d ever had an abortion! I walked out of the interview. This was what the world of work was like for young women back then. I was feminist from day dot and remember spending my youth very angry at men for the way women were treated.

I used to work for a high street bank and this was absolutely a thing in the 50s/60s women had to give up work upon marriage. In fact one lady told me of another lady who said you also had to ask the branch manager for permission to get married! (Not sure how true that is)

I used to work with someone who had to get the partners (law firm type place) permission to keep working after she got married.

@DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat that's exactly what happens to my dm in 1972 when she told her employer she was pregnant with me

My great aunt married a policeman in the late 1940’s and remember her saying she was made to give up her job at the post office. She said it was deemed unprofessional for a police man’s wife to work as it suggested the policeman wasn’t paid enough.

My grandma worked nights in a hospital. While being a wife and mother of multiple kids.

She's 90 years old now. Married in the early 1950s. Working 50s till 80s.

Your family's attitude towards your aunt is horrible, pity the private education your mother and grandmother had didn't teach respect for others especially family.

I remember watching open mouthed at the Back In Time For The Factory 1968 episode (Alex Jones presented last year or so). One of the women received a letter from the employer saying ‘Now you’re pregnant your services are no longer required’ - and that was it! Sacked for being pregnant in 1968.

Woman on mortgages was probably the 70s as that is when DM went onto their mortgage and house documents.

"Maternity leave was available , maximum 18 weeks on half-pay & back to work when baby was 6 weeks old.

Where you getting this from and when do you think this happened? As far as I'm aware there was no maternity leave or pay until at least 1975 and even then there were stringent and restrictive qualifying conditions. When I had dd in 2001 even, there was still limitations far greater than there are now."
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Personal experience in 1967. And council-run nurseries were available - at a means-tested cost.

Depends on where you worked but yes a lot of places didn’t employ married women. My mother had to leave her job as a shorthand typist when she got married but she easily got another job elsewhere in an office that was more enlightened.

I grew up in the 70s. Many of my primary teachers were married but I distinctly remember my Gran asking what my teachers name was and if I replied Mrs. Xxxx she would be quite aghast that all these married women were working and why didn’t they give their jobs up to unmarried women. She was born in the previous century mind ;)

She's totally right, although it was changing in England around the late 1960's and it was becoming almost acceptable for a woman to work after marriage, and several employers would actually allow women to continue work part time although fewer would allow them to continue full time and once married your promotion prospects were openly, severely curtailed.
In many communities, it was seen as shameful for a wife to work outside of the home. It was considered to be a big slur on the husbands manhood, I remember hushed voices whispering about how awful it was that "Betty's husband isn't man enough to keep her" (i.e he doesn't earn enough).
Women earned less for doing the same job and working the same hours because it was considered women only worked for "pin money". In most jobs there was a "woman's wage" and a "mans wage, the man's always being higher. Women didn't have the same rights or career progression either.
Women were not able to enter the workforce on equal terns until 1975. Before that they were not allowed to do certain jobs or train for certain professions and it was totally acceptable for an employer to refuse to employ a woman, or to employ a man over a woman even if he was considerably less qualified.

I feel terribly sorry for your aunt, OP - it sounds like she has lived a sort of thwarted life in a gilded cage. How sad that that earlyish period of her life has overshadowed the rest of it, she obviously feels like her life has been only half lived and, rather than being lazy and entitled, wishes she had been able to carry on working (I would suppose in large part because it would have given her a small measure of independence?). Was she kind of expected to have a cleaner and housekeeper as befitting someone in her position? A friend of mine grew up in South Africa with several servants which we find hilariously lazy but it would have been massively socially unacceptable of their family not to employ people, there is not much of a welfare state there so people of a certain income level who don't have servants are viewed as very selfish and greedy, wanting to keep all their money to themselves rather than supporting other people with jobs.

It's really good that you have asked about this and been open to people's answers, well done for being open minded which is hard to do when there's a bit of a pile on It's lovely to think that now you will be able to understand your aunt a bit better when she brings all of this up again.

Women couldn't get a mortgage in their own until mid 1980s

Yes they could and I did in 1982.

I think this is partly why we have had to take decades to establish better working rights and better attitudes towards women in the workplace.

Our current inequalities relating to pay or representation at senior levels have origins in the very real views that women didn't need jobs once they got married, and then had children too, and when they did they were rarely a chief breadwinner.

So are you going to tell your aunt that you accept she's right?

But is she right? . She may have had to give up work for that particular employer in 1964. There is absolutely no reason that she should never have worked again between 1964 and retirement age.