Can I ask a question about women's history.....a bit embarrassed that I don't understand it

Curiously my grandmother (not the same one as above) who did carry on working was the one who was better off. She was a music teacher after marriage and children, but she had nannies and worked for herself and didn't need the money for the household. I agree that it's a nonsense about women not working, because of course working class women often had to work, and the wife of a man in trade would almost certainly have equal amounts of work to do in the family business, but without te recognition of being head of the household or business

My mum left her job (radiographer) when she got married - I guess in about 1970. I do wonder why the hell she even bothered qualifying given she would have only been 22 when she gave up work 'for life'.

A colleague told me that at the end of the 70s/early 80s, he worked in a bank. There were two keys needed to open the safe. The (male) manager had one and, as the only other male employee, he was entrusted with the other. No-one thought this remotely odd. Hilariously my colleague is as gay as Christmas and so would probably have been demoted to 'less trustworthy than a woman' had the manager known.

Perhaps we could invert the traditions of the past and make it socially unacceptable for married men to work? (I'm not suggesting this seriously but pointing out the ludicrous nature of the suggestion upthread).

We could go further back and bar married men from holding property.

Omnipotent I wish I were so eloquent!

Society is sexist. Less obviously so than it used to be, but women are still expected to know their place. We live in a patriarchal society with so much of our tradition, etiquette and frankly law aimed at preserving that.

my first marriage was in 1986, I worked at an accountants. They employed a few lady bookkeepers in their 60s. One of them asked in all seriousness whether I'd be carrying on working after the wedding! ( I did )

My grandmother never stopped working. She took in laundry for money. My grandparents were very poor so no other option, particularly during the war. My father and his siblings were working by 14 too. My other grandmother on the other hand never worked, and my mother became a teacher in the late 40s expecting to give up on marriage. In the end she didn't marry till the 70s when no one cared.

Cheeypi hell yes that would be lovely!

Things are such a grind for so many people aren't they but TBH it's always been that way for the majority I guess. Even when 1 wage did support a family you had men stressed to the max about providing and women popping valium & drinking because of the stresses of their situation.

Errol My mum told me this after I made some comment about my aunt. She was part of a secretarial pool in a London firm. I think it probably depends on the type of company/job.

Employers were much more intrusive in everyone's life, my grandfather worked for a bank that didn't allow men to get married until they earned a certain amount of money!

My Mum's colleagues all stopped work as soon as they got pregnant, I've got colleagues in their late 50s who took several years out for children in the 80s, things changed very quickly though, those a few years younger only took a few months off when they had kids and they are the generation that have started to break through the glass ceiling.

It would be nice if one wage was enough to support a family again though wouldn't it? Two people working 2.5 days each for instance.

Even as recent as 1974 when I was born my mum had to give up work because her employer had a rule that if you left your job for any reason (including maternity) they would never re employ you.

She was a secretary & I was unplanned. Luckily for he she was able to find another job after I was born as my dad was only an apprentice.

My grandmother was a teacher pre WW1 and married near the start of it - grandpa was of course in the army. As there was a shortage of teachers with men called up, she asked the school board if she could continue to work, which they agreed to. However, they assumed she wouldn't want paying now she had a husband to provide for her. She told them that with him away risking life and limb she most certainly did expect payment - she won her point.

Of course when the men returned after the war many women were ousted from their jobs at whatever level.

I'm a bit surprised by Tinselaffe's aunt in the 60s - my mother was begged to return to teaching the moment I turned 5 in 1966, and at that point nearly all the teachers in my primary school were married mothers.

It was the idea that a married woman didn't need a job, as her husband should be providing for her, and if they employed her, they would be taking away a job from a man, who obviously did need a job in order to provide for his wife. Ridiculous circular logic really.

lol @ narrow minded spinsters

Obviously the work of women is much improved if they have been familiar with a penis or 2

Yes agree Custardo AFAIK in the UK this was a problem for women in "professional" roles specifically where there were rules about it I think + I expect there was discrimination generally as still goes on.

In the US it again was mainly "better" jobs, reading the stuff, I don't think it was women doing paid heavy / unskilled / menial / "suitable" work that got booted out.

Women are always good enough to do low-paid shitwork, that goes without saying. When they're not doing it for free, that is.

TBH this still goes on - women are seen by governments as an optional resource that they can press into doing whatever is needed at whatever time and then chuck out again. So eg all the women in the wars who stepped up to do various roles that were previously closed to them, and then when the men came home they were unceremoniously told to get back to the home whether they wanted to or not.

Observe the current / recent economic crisis and the way the cuts have impacted most heavily on women, and that it was women who were expected to step up and fill the gaps left by funding via "the big society". Well, they didn't say women, but that was what they meant wasn't it. They wanted women to be at home raising children and doing free voluntary work thus keeping everything going and freeing up paid employment for men. It's a Victorian / 1950s approach (fetishisation of woman as self-sacrificing home-maker and earth mother) and one that appeals to lots of people still, sadly.

That article still managed to be insulting even when it was arguing that women should be allowed to work after marriage:
"The female staff of the Civil Service will lack broad-mindedness if it is entirely composed of spinsters. "
Tossers.

It is important to remember that many poor women did keep working hard Labour jobs in factories and mills and look after kids and do all the house chores because men got paid more and culture as lot to do with it. Also remember that poor kids worked too

DAunt left her job when she got married. Then had to go back under her maiden name until her first child was born as they needed the money. Her employer pretended the wedding had never happened. This was in the 1960s. I agree that it is very unlikely that there will ever be enough suitable jobs for everyone that wants to work but the answer isn't to discriminate against and subjugate 52% of the population. What a stupid idea bilbodog

My great-aunt was a doctor and she was told she had to leave her job when she got married.

OP - in the US during the Great Depression there were explicit bars to employing married women at various state levels and in various industries:

"The federal government also discriminated against married women workers. In 1932 Congress passed the Federal Economy Act, which, through explicit language, had the effect of excluding a married woman from working in civil service if her husband did as well. Twenty-six state and local governments all over the country considered laws that would bar married women from working in government jobs in the early 1930s. As a result, public school and transportation systems nationwide began to fire and refuse to hire married women. Banks, insurance companies, public utilities companies, and railways also discriminated against married women in their hiring practices.(65) Also, traditional labor unions, like those associated with the AFL, almost entirely excluded women during the early 1930s."

That is from here If you google "Great Depression women banned working" there is loads of stuff.

My gran had to give up her job. It was a real shame.

I think the OP is asking what was the legal rationale to the marriage bar, e.g. in teaching.

I think (disclaimer - no expert!) that in the period you mention, a young girl would have lived with parents until marriage, where her Mum would have kept house, and on leaving school the girl would get a job and bring in extra money. Then on marrying the girl would move into a new house with her husband, and would give up work to keep that house.

I think our economy would be a bit f*ed if jobs were always given to "men and young people" rather than to the person that would do it better.

Ah yes. Am sure a stepford style lifestyle would mean kids were looked after better.

Really bilbodog. This is mn. Do you seriously expect much support on here for such a fatuous comment?

My nan was not allowed to continue being a teacher after she got married. She did continue for a year and didn't tell them but had to give up when pregnancy began to show. She was born 1910 so this would have been 1930s. I don't know the history, just what she told me. The reason was because a womans priority was meant to be the family and children after marriage and also to free up jobs for men (high uneployment in 1930s).