What does "social status" in marriage mean?

I also agree with solid.

I don't think there is much of a difference between men and women tbh.

If anything, I think society (or some sad people) judge single/divorced men of a certain age harsher than they do women.
I think men are more accepting ( possibly less chooses!) of a single woman with children than vice versa.

Yes some weirdos may think married women are superior but I tend not to mix with those bigots.

What annoys me more are the married women who think my life is the same as theirs. By that I mean a work colleague was asking why I'm applying for other jobs, I told her I need more money. She replied that she is in the same boat. Er no you aren't. You have a dh who works full time and your dc now support themselves. She has never been in the same position as me as a single mother without any support from her ex.

In your example, OP, maybe there was something of 'I used to be a high court judge's wife (or whatever) and now I'm not '? Ie social status through association with a particular husband?

There is, still, a general perception that women who do not have an obvious male owner are wierd and dangerous. This is because YES WE ARE. We give other women Ideas ie that there is life outside servicing a man and eating shit 'working at the relationship. Even if we are single mothers, once the children are asleep we have time to think.

So the general cultural pressure of the patriacrchy has to convey the message as strongly as possible that a woman without A Man In Her life is to be pitied, feared or despised. Because if all women knew the truth: single life is wonderful, and only worth giving up for a really wonderful partner, then a lot more men would have to cook their own meals, launder their own skiddy pants and maybe even suck their own dicks rather than being able to capture and own a woman who has been convinced that she is too old to be 'choosy'.

With what WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes is there still that societal conditioning with women into thinking they are not complete without a partner?

Does this then have repercussions in why women tolerate bad relationships?

I'm somewhat younger than you, Lass, and one of my grandmothers had to give up work on getting married.

I got the impression it is also affected by who has the kids? - to some extent but as I mentioned earlier men who get 'left with the kids' tend to elicit sympathy and people help them out where as women who have been careless enough to lose their partner don't help, at least to the same degree.

YY a divorced man is newly eligible, a divorced woman is used goods

I got the impression it is also affected by who has the kids?

This discussion reminds me of the smug married people in brigette jones - "when you going to get sprogged up" "scaring away those men" etc whereas guys can be batchelors/players for life

I get the impression some women feel they gain social status by being married, you often read on the threads about the titles Miss/Mrs/Ms people saying that they couldn't wait to be able to be called Mrs, that they like using it because they are proud to be married and want the world to know that etc. So conversely, maybe they feel they lose status if they divorce. I might be completely wrong though, they might just hate Ms and feel that Miss is inappropriate for a married woman, or just feel that if they are taking their husband's name that using Mrs is the logical title to go with it. Social status is a very inexact concept really.

Yep agree with you both.

I also think that social status is a factor in lots of things we do. Why should marriage be any different? Marriage was established, in part for social status reasons.

Exactly

He's still marketable, responsible, with the gravitas of fatherhood

She's just a single mother, unreliable, not committed, too many caring responsibilities...

with baggage

YY a divorced man is newly eligible, a divorced woman is used goods

I'd agree with you there Basil, I think the difference is that women tend to lose any status they have within the marriage on divorce, while men seem to retain it. Even if the man has been the cause of the divorce ime

"I don't think western society cares much one way or the other. Certain married women in my experience think they have some sort of status which unmarried women don't."

Where d'you think they get that idea from? It's from the western society which apparently doesn't care one way or the other. Ideas come from somewhere, unless you're suggesting that these particular women are uniquely mad and have just got hold of this idea from nowhere.

I think both men and women gain status from being married tbh. Men are seen as more respectable and stable and when they have children, they are even more respectable. Married men earn more than single men, fathers earn more than non-fathers and this is even when you factor out class and age (the posher you are, the more likely to marry, the older you are, the more likely to have had children, obv).

Yes Lass, I am aware that you're 55 not 95. Your great aunts would be your grandparent's generation (being sisters of either your grandmother or grandfather), so that bit older, when women were expected to give up professional jobs on marriage... are you deliberately misreading me? When I was at school, people of my grandparent's generation were retired, perhaps your family has children remarkably younger than mine?

And no, you put what you said perfectly, and it still proves my point.

Puffins I remember the teacher and the shop owner and they were formidable women.I am sure they influenced me.My impression was they had a definite status in the community because of what they had achieved on their own. I put it badly, what I meant was being married conferred very little status on the 3rd aunt. My grandmother was married to a successful farmer but she was in awe of them.

Re women giving up professions when marrying I am 55 not 95. There were loads of married female teachers. The head of maths was a single woman but the deputy was a married woman. I can recall 2 married female science teachers , my Latin teacher was a married woman.

Vir - what do you mean by social status - as in she lost her au pair?

Odd construction to put on it Vir.

No I don't think she was implying any of those things viridus. She was saying as well as losing money/husband/companion/house etc (or whatever she lost) she also lost social status, which may not have been apparent when she was in the marriage. Not that she married for social status. That is your interpretation.