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

My late MIL gave up work when she married in 1954. I always found it strange, especially as my mum worked all her life. If she hadn’t we would have starved! My dad never earned much and they were hard up even with both of them working. I guess she was a good role model in that sense at least, as we grew up taking it for granted that we would all have to work for a living.

That, and at school a riddle was "A man and his son come into the ER and need an operation. the surgeon says "I can't operate on him as that's my son" How is this possible" So they were pushing this rubbish down our throats in school in the mid 1980s still.

I suspect that if this was asked during a lesson by a teacher, it was designed to uncover and make you aware of unconscious bias.

My gran carried on working in an office when she got married, (Scotland) she was born in 1926. My great aunt born a few years later only qualified as a doctor after she got married, and carried on working. They were solidly working class though, I think that might make a difference.

I'm a child of the 70s and I was a latchkey kid.

My mother HAD to give up work when she married. It was policy at the company she worked for. She married in the 60s and worked for a bank.

It may have been more common by the 60's, but in the 50's I was sometimes referred to as a "latchkey child" and it was not complimentary to my parents; very much the expectation that, when you got home from school, SAHM was there to receive you. It was seen as a reflection on the husband's earning capacity.
My godmother trained as a teacher just after the end of WWII, and it was still relatively unusual for married women to be teaching; it was assumed that a "Mrs" was a widow.
But it is certainly true that the NAS (National Association of Schoolmasters) began as a breakaway from the NUT (National Union of Teachers) because they disagreed with equal pay for women teachers - a position long since abandoned, to be fair. Men needed to be paid more, because their earnings were assumed to be supporting a family.
But at the beginning of my teaching career, I was part of a campaign for equal pension rights for widows and widowers. Men and women had the same deduction from their salary, but widows were entitled to more than widowers.
And had I been ready to get a mortgage on my first little flat, my savings and income would not have been sufficient without a male relative to stand as a guarantor.

The rest of the neighbourhood/village. Those that thought of themselves as “respectable” and “middle class”

Maybe I never heard it because I grew up in London and from a more working class background. There was definitely some objection to mothers of young children working and talk of ‘latchkey kids’.

My parents married in 1953. My mother carried on teaching full time to 1961 as she was supporting my medical student father for most of that time (he was doing exams until he as 30). They wanted to buy a house so put off children until I arrived in 1961. I think people being forced out on marriage from teaching at least was well before 1953.

Ok. Your comment sounded as though you were dismissing my experience as not being real? Perhaps I misread.

No, just saying I didn’t share it and speculating that maybe I was applying for jobs rather than a career. The rest was just my attempt at humour.

I think it’s so important to keep it remembered that even a lot of the women who worked after marriage and children still had to give up their job

My nana’s 3 sisters worked after marriage, but all had to give up nursing. They ended up with cleaning jobs

So went one of two ways, if the family could live on the husbands wage alone, the woman was looked down on for working. This happened in my family. We had a series of nannies and out and about I’d overhear lots of gossip about how uncaring my mother was for not being home with we children.

My mother had a PhD and was a published author, but sexism was so bad that the only job she could get was as a typing teacher. Back then employers were allowed to ask if you were married, how many children, etc. And they were allowed to discriminate against married women and mothers. Perfectly legal and expected.

If the family couldn’t live on the husbands wage alone, it was the man who was looked down on as a failure of a breadwinner. His wife was an object of pity.

My mum was an unqualified tax accountant at the CoOp.

Who was doing all this looking down on and mocking men whose wives worked in the mid 60’s? I was of an age when my mum and friend’s mums were going back to work as childcare was no longer needed. Most families in that position were enjoying having 2 incomes and the extras it brought after years of getting by on one.

Who was doing all this looking down on and mocking men whose wives worked in the mid 60’s? I was of an age when my mum and friend’s mums were going back to work as childcare was no longer needed. Most families in that position were enjoying having 2 incomes and the extras it brought after years of getting by on one.

My parents got married in 1968 and had my sister in 1970 and me in 1972. I can't recall my mum ever NOT working. We had an after school housekeeper.

Who was doing all this looking down on and mocking men whose wives worked in the mid 60’s? I was of an age when my mum and friend’s mums were going back to work as childcare was no longer needed. Most families were enjoying having 2 incomes and the extras it brought after years of getting by on one.

Yes it was true for most jobs. My mother married in 1966 and was promptly sacked for being married. The unemployment rate was very high at the time and the common knowledge was that a married woman was taking away a job from a man who might have a wife and children to support. This wasn’t as common in predominately female low paid areas of work such as teacher, dinner lady, cleaning lady, nurse, etc (this was back when you didn’t need a degree to teach or nurse). But any profession that was male dominated (and most of them were,...) yes women were absolutely sacked and also not hired because they were married.

Societally, it was also frowned on to keep working once married. Men were mocked and looked down on if their wives worked for not being able to support a wife. It was looked at that married women only worked if their husband was either an unemployed lazy scrounged or if their husband was so low income that she had to work. If in rare case, a woman managed to hang on to a professional job after marriage then again the husband was looked down on and it was said that the wife “wore the trousers” and he wasn’t in charge of his household.

Yes it was true for most jobs. My mother married in 1966 and was promptly sacked for being married. The unemployment rate was very high at the time and the common knowledge was that a married woman was taking away a job from a man who might have a wife and children to support. This wasn’t as common in predominately female low paid areas of work such as teacher, dinner lady, cleaning lady, nurse, etc (this was back when you didn’t need a degree to teach or nurse). But any profession that was male dominated (and most of them were,...) yes women were absolutely sacked and also not hired because they were married.

Societally, it was also frowned on to keep working once married. Men were mocked and looked down on if their wives worked for not being able to support a wife. It was looked at that married women only worked if their husband was either an unemployed lazy scrounged or if their husband was so low income that she had to work. If in rare case, a woman managed to hang on to a professional job after marriage then again the husband was looked down on and it was said that the wife “wore the trousers” and he wasn’t in charge of his household.

I mean how does one 'look' fertile?

Quite easy - if you look as though you are aged 60 Plus, then it can be assumed that your childbearing years are over.

My mother and grandmother both worked still after both marriage and children.

With my grandparents, in the 50's and 60's they shared household chores and childrearing. She did most of the cooking, but he'd wash and and do most of the cleaning etc and do packed lunches.

MIL had to leave the army, as she outranked the man she married.

I mean how does one 'look' fertile?
I’ve no idea; it was meant to be a joke.

So important that women's stories - of fighting to be able to work, or of wanting to but being unable due to circumstances or social expectations - keep being told. It's all still so recent really - all in living memory or touching distance of it. And you only need look at the disproportionate effect of lockdown on mothers to see how easily things can slide backwards again.

I can sort of understand them asking with something like the diplomatic service where you’ll be posted abroad.

It was "sort of" illegal, even then.

I think the class thing is significant here: yes, working class women have always worked. But worked - generally - in jobs without pensions, with low pay, with little security, and no promotion - jobs, rather than careers, which could be organised around childcare and domestic (unpaid) labour.