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

I think she is right but also there are the women who had to work! Different expectations for different classes.

My gran got married in 1949. She worked as a teacher until retirement aged 60, although she had a few years out when she had her kids. Both her mum and MIL also worked after marriage - but they were poor and it was the interwar period, so maybe more normal then? Who knows

My DGM born in 1930 worked from before she left school until the age of 85. Really she was forced into retirement by dementia and her driving licence being revoked.

We're so used to the disintegration of stable jobs and rocketing house prices that it's easy to forget that in lots of the twentieth century blue-collar workers also had stable jobs and a decent standard of living, and weren't always as precarious as many low-income communities and jobs are now. Some working-class women worked to support families - especially where there were many dependent family members or no male breadwinner. But there were also many working-class communities with had a strong belief that women shouldn't work and that a good working class man provided for his family. My paternal grandmother was scandalised at the thought of her daughters working - she believed in very rigid gender roles and even in the 1980s when I was a child, served every meal in order of oldest man - youngest man then oldest women - youngest woman! If a guest was a young woman she came last int he pecking order - the men of the house were kings!

In fact when my mum (a university graduate) had to go back to work in the 90s because the recession meant my parents were struggling financially, my dad's family - all very proud working class - were scandalised about how my mum shouldn't be working outside the home and that this reflected badly on my dad. They thought of women working as definitely a middle-class affectation.

In teaching, they often did. A lot of posts were only open to spinsters.

The concept of a SAHM is a relatively recent thing, invented by the rising middle class as a status symbol.

Ha! Not really. SAHMs always existed right from ancient times. Roman matrons didn’t have paid jobs, for example. The middle merchant class expanded dramatically during the Renaissance and these up and coming families copied the aristocrats both in the houses they bought, the clothes they wore, their manners, and also by their wives not working. The SAHM wasn’t “invented” by the middle class and a nonworking wife was a status symbol because it was what the aristocrats did.

Just be glad it wasn’t bound feet on top of being barred from working.

A lot of WC women will always have worked, through economic necessity, and there have always been exceptions at all levels of society, so there was never a single story to be told.

And of course as well as the husband's line of "My wife doesn't need to work", the middle class woman herself would feel that she was a bit better than the working class women who did have to go out to work, which acted as a reinforcing mechanism.

I think that younger women forget how being at home can sap your confidence.

Back in the early 1960s they were trying to encourage married women to go in for primary teaching, and I tried to encourage my DM to take it up, because I think she would have been good at it. But she never did. By then she'd been out of the world of education for 25 years, not having had a terribly good education, and out of the world of work for getting on for 15 years, and it would have been too big a jump. She always felt under-educated - another one of those times when a girl's education just wasn't seen as being very important.

I think it depends what you call "relatively recent" well-todo women mostly wouldn't have worked, but they would also have had household staff, possibly including a nursery maid or nanny, probably a cook or housemaid - you didn't have to be very well-off at all to have a general daily come in

This mostly changed after WW2 (though it started before then,) partly because of more household gadgets, partly because staff cost, partly because women realised there were more options available to them, and a lot paid better than skivvying. So while a lot of women were technically SAHMs, in that they were mothers and didn't work, they weren't necessarily doing the bulk of housework and childcare, as you might expect today, particularly before the second half of the 20th century - which in historical terms, is relatively recent.

A lot of WC women will always have worked, through economic necessity, and there have always been exceptions at all levels of society, so there was never a single story to be told.

My grandmother married in 1917. I don't know at what stage she gave up work but certainly had done by the time my mother was born in 1921 and never worked again. Not even during WW2 although she did some voluntary work then. So for middle class women it's at least 100 years. Does that count as relatively recent?

But housework was more demanding without the labour saving devices we have now, and with coal fires having to be made each morning in the winter.

The concept of a SAHM is a relatively recent thing, invented by the rising middle class as a status symbol.
It really wasn't we lived in a private mortgaged house in a wc area, a couple of the DM's worked not many. The Dad's did, the mother's drank tea and done a quick tidy before Ddad arrived home to a warm dinner and blockbusters.

My Grandma used to work for Bournville she had to leave when she got married, it didn't stop her going back into the work place when she was older and times had changed.

French Resistence - that must beat it for unusual occupations.

@MissTrip82
The fact that the working class women in your family have had to, and were able to keep working after marriage does not mean that other women did not have different experiences . Your last paragraph about the SAHM being only a recent thing is really ignorant . Have you not read the real life experiences others have posted on here ?

Well although my mother lost employment due to marriage, and then seven pregnancies, my grandmother did actually “work” after marriage. Although that was during WWII when she was a member of the French Resistance. In history, I think more married women were working during WWI and WWII than from 1950-1970 because so many men were in the military so there was a shortage of workers. So we need to keep in mind that the generations of women from those wars were living in exceptional times.

Yes it is common knowledge in banking that women (if they were lucky to get employed) only worked in basic admin jobs and were expected to leave as soon as they married.
I believe the civil service was similar

I returned to work in the mid 1980s in the civil service after maternity leave, was one of the first women in my department to do this.

Also my g Gran Lily was one of the first women ever to join the Army and serve abroad - she joined the Women's Royal Army Corps approx 1917 & served in France near Lille.
She started work at age 14 as a weaver in St.Helen's near Manchester.
She met my g grandfather while serving in France, he was an army officer who was almost 20 years older.

My Nan (mum's mum) worked after her marriage to my Grandad in 1945 through the 50s to the 1970s firstly as a telephonist then as a general office worker in various factories, mostly in the South of England.
She took early retirement when my Grandad retired so she could spend time with him.
My Nan had to work to help with the bills but also, to get out of the home & have a life of her own really.

Her mother (my g gran) worked after her marriage in 1918 together with her much older husband (my g grandfather) until his sudden death in 1940 aged 58, helping him to run various shops & pubs in the Manchester area.

After his death she closed their grocers shop she then started work as a nurse in an Asylum; ending up as Matron of an Asylum before her early death in 1960 aged 63.

My other Nan (dads mum) was a bus driver after her marriage in 1940 as part of the War Effort.
When the war ended the male bus drivers came back from the War then my Nan gave birth to 5 children in quick succession.
Scandalously for those days she was then got divorced by my dads father who remarried a much younger woman.
My grandfather had become a successful photographer so he paid spousal maintenance for my Nan so she didn't have to work & paid maintenance for the children that were still at home.
He also allowed them to stay in their 3 bed home which he owned, and didn't sell it until my Nan (who still lived there) was in her 60s. Her eldest daughter & her husband who had made some money then bought her a house where she lived rent free until aged 90.

@irresistibleoverwhelm yes as an army brat I lived all over Uk and saw the differences, being a scot saw them when we visited “home” too, south east was way ahead of things generally speaking.

@groovergirl - absolutely there didn’t need to be an official marriage or motherhood bar for employers, educators and trainers to discriminate and prevent women and girls from accessing and entering education, training and workplaces

@alexdgr8 we didn’t get first freezer till ‘86 microwave ‘88 and that was because dad got a bonus

@TheAlphaandTheOmega you were lucky, I had a nightmare finding one for dd (ASC) even though we were in an albeit small city at the time. ASC was other end of city and with rush hour traffic I had to negotiate altered hours and shave 30 mins off my lunch break just so I could drop off and pick up on time. Several frantic days where an accident or roadworks delayed me and I’d have to pay a fine to ASC. I always let them know I was on my way and often they knew before me as they’d heard reports on the local radio

@givemesteel - genuinely wondering how old you are because the changes were VERY. Slow to work their way through, there weren’t a lot of options PLUS in the late 70’s and early to mid 80’s unemployment was very high so it was hard for ANYONE to get a job. I’m wondering if your social history knowledge is a little lacking? Plus for many who lived rurally/semi rurally there were - and still are - precious few employers anyway. This all means it’s almost always an employers market - they have the power, that’s why legislation has been necessary to MAKE them treat employees decently and fairly.

so I think she is rewriting history don’t think it’s ops aunt doing that!

@brefugee I first became aware of it when a babysitter of ours told us her CO had REFUSED her permission as he didn’t approve of her fiancé! Outrageous!

@EL8888 sorry I didn’t mean to be off, just found your comment odd. The civil service even now the depts have great disparity in terms and conditions of contracts. I’ve worked for mod admin in civil service as ex was army and it allowed me to transfer at times and keep a job, other relatives work or worked for hmrc, dvla, passport office, fco, dwp etc all have very different ways of working and of recruiting.

Certainly any roles that involved overseas travel or assignments were very much not seen as “suitable” for married women and definitely not mothers. It was this attitude led to some of my female relatives transferring to other depts upon marriage and children even if they didn’t want to, lots of pressure put on them. Little short of hazing really.

My mother and nearly all my friends’ mothers worked when I was at secondary school; be very interested to know what type of jobs, very hard to get into more “career” than “job” positions after a long time out of the workforce

@beamur I have family in USA and their attitudes to sick leave and maternity rights are shockingly far behind the rest of the world! They seem to have a system of allocated sick days that they have to judge whether it’s worth taking a day off and using up a day of their allowance, mothers are pressured to return to work fairly quickly after birth.

Very annoying the number of posters expressing scepticism who I am fairly sure these eras were not in their living memory. Don’t dismiss the ACTUAL experiences of those of us who went through it.

although I strongly suspect that we are going backwards again.

I very much sense that too

@peregrina I wonder what today’s 20/30 something women and even men would make of this tv show?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTwooofUss(1986TVV_series)

I had friends that were a cohabiting couple in the early 90’s which their parents grudgingly tolerated but when she became pregnant (planned) the parents all then insisted they get married, lots of arguments and tension and the couple eventually capitulated as they were being ostracised by their whole families! Heartbreaking! They are still together and have had more dc but I think they would have even if they hadn’t married.

Well, of course, even in the early seventies, quite a lot of women were already pregnant (shock, horror) when they got married

This made me smile - I was the first woman for several generations who WASN’T pregnant when they married in my family.

This also raised the school leaving age to 15 and was implemented in 1947. not sure this applied in Scotland, all but a few of my relatives of parents generation (born ‘40’s and ‘50’s and ‘60’s - big catholic families I have an aunt and an uncle who are closer in age to me than to my parents their siblings) left school at 14 inc both parents.

And on the back of that, I have asked if this can go into classics.

Excellent idea

Women are also in danger of losing those sex-based rights and protections because 'sex' as a class is being legally eroded.

Totally agree, also agree that younger women often don’t truly understand/comprehend WHY this is a problem as they haven’t lived how it was

@countrygirl99 we have a similar tale in my family, one of my grans sisters had a similar situation. If people learned she had left her husband despite the fact he battered her she received much criticism.

Admittedly I’ve never had a high powered job where leaving would be a problem. Or perhaps I didn’t look particularly fertile.

As I said in an earlier post I have been asked such questions in interviews this century for nmw part time retail jobs! So hardly high powered. I don’t think I look particularly fertile either (and I’m not)

I can sort of understand them asking with something like the diplomatic service where you’ll be posted abroad
Why? Why is it any more problematic for a woman/mother to do such a role than a man/father?

It is also sad the number of people saying "well she could have gone back to work on the 70s/80s" without recognising the barriers that prevented women from returning to work.

Definitely - it’s damn hard even now to get back into the workplace after a long break. Employers all want “recent experience” “recent references” etc

MIL had to leave the army, as she outranked the man she married. a boss I had with mod civil service was disciplined for marrying a man of a Lower rank even though he was in a different branch (navy) - this was late 1990’s! He was not affected at all.

My ex - who was passed over for promotion many times because he’s a lazy jobsworth got promoted a few months after dd was born as his boss thought he needed the extra money now he was a father. This was in 2001!

many men had to inform their employer if they intended to marry, as they would have greater responsibilities, might need more money

Economists call this the [male] "marriage bonus" and it's still a thing: men's salaries go up when they marry, women's generally go down.

My grandmother worked her whole life in schools. She got married in 1961 and worked after all her 3 children were born. My great grandmother worked her whole life too as a seamstress although she did do this from home.

Men needed to be paid more, because their earnings were assumed to be supporting a family.
My mum still believes this clap trap!
I survived a round of redundancies and mum asked who lost their job. When I told her the name of the bloke she couldn't believe it.
She was saying you would have thought that they would have kept him on. When asked why she was saying 'well you know , He needs a man's wage' After going through all the ridiculous arguments about ' a man's wage' I pointed out he was single with no ties and I have two young kids and Dh's business has just folded so I was supporting everything she still could believe I got the job over him ( even though I was more qualified and was getting better results and interviewed well!) The year this happened? 2016 😂😂

My maternal grandmother, born in 1895, was widowed with 4 children in about 1930, when my mum was 10 ish. Mum was the 3rd. There was no social security so it was sink or swim, Nanna became a children’s Nanny, and later a housekeeper, in order to keep her children from the workhouse. She married the man she was a housekeeper to, he was an elderly bachelor and they had a happy few years until he died. She had a comfortable last few years thanks to him.
My paternal grandmother, in the east end of London, was widowed when pregnant with her 10th child, in 1918. She had no profession. Again, there was no social security. She died in 1935 , in the asylum of the workhouse, I’m not sure whether my dad ever knew that, he always told me she’d died when he was a child.
The local extended family helped and all the 8 surviving children, including my dad, born in 1915, were educated. 2 of the boys became pharmacists, others went into accountancy, teaching, the girls married well!
This is just 2 generations back from me.