Is it antifeminist to promote marriage

I think there are a couple points here.

It's inevitably the case that people who have sorter rather than longer careers will have on average a different kind of career. That's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a variety of reasons people might take such a break.

It's increasingly common for people to have major career changes in a lifetime.

Many people live long enough, and in many cases have a long enough working career, that they can have several careers, or start late and have a full career even beginning at 30. The fact that we look askance at this is mainly down to prejudice, not any real assessment of people's skills.

Many, many, many people have jobs rather than careers.

Even while working, one or both parents typically need more flexibility in work commitments in order to manage the demands of family life, which often translates to a less demanding, and highly paid, job. This is especially true if one parent has an especially demanding job.

One way or another, someone in society is putting in the time to take care of the kids, parent or not.

The fact that child-rearing within the family can't somehow be worked into this, for men or women, isn't really about fitness to work or any intrinsic demands of work.

I find this interesting because it reminds me a lot of the common criticism many people who see themselves as politically progressive make of right-wing thought - that it believes we are all independent and should not be able to rely on others for support.

Whether or not that is an accurate description of right wing thinking, I find it interesting that progressivism is ok with social supports and obligations through the state, but not through family members.

What if what is often called a 'gap' on a CV was actually a time that was valued by employers?

I consider a mother to most likely be someone who is organised, capable and dedicated. I don't see child rearing years as a 'gap', but as valuable experience.

The gap isn’t generally valued because the skills you gain as a SAHM aren’t generally particularly useful in most working environments. And the skills you had that were valuable tend to atrophy. While many mothers are organised, capable and dedicated, that applies at least as much to mothers who work as to SAHMs.

That isn’t to say there aren’t many SAHMs who find ways to build up more widely useful (to the working world) skill sets that rival those of people who stay in the workplace, but it isn’t the norm.

I do think society could and should do a lot more to get women who have a break to raise children back into higher skilled work. Which would, I think, be a policy we’d both agree on. But in general those women are still going to have less relevant experience and so have a lower career trajectory, than similar aged people who don’t take a break.

My personal view is it is not the role of either solely the father nor the mother to financially provide for their child or children.
Even if my husband was a high earner I absolutely would still go to work. Why is still the expectation that "a man should be the provider."
My toddler is the financial responsibility of both myself and my husband.
We expect (quite rightly) these days for dads to share the childcare, as women we can't just have equality when it suits us!!

I would presume the best thing any person over 18 can do if they have the capacity to do so is remain independent of another person ie a partner.

But I am not sure what is worse marriage or not or people feeling they have the right to say how others should live or not, I find this idea controlling even when people try and dress it up as ‘concern’

Try asking without taking one fraction of a quote out of context.

It is actually possible to get work after your kids grow up.

But I am not sure why it matters whether the husband (or perhaps sometimes the wife) doesn't want to support the child-rearing spouse after a divorce. That's what he signed up for, or would if we had the kinds of laws that demanded that.

I find the demand that men step up on the one hand, and then this sort of excusing on the other, a very odd combination.

I don't think marriage per se is anti-feminist, and there are things you can do to challenge its patriarchal traditions eg. retaining family name and title etc.
I do however think most wedding ceremonies are steeped in sexism. I made sure to challenge this at my own wedding. Example: my father didn't walk me down the aisle, didn't throw a bouquet, made a speech etc.

Possibly extreme but I am responding to a post that said precisely that.

If both parents would rather work that is one thing, but the idea that they ought to work and it is anti-feminist to say otherwise, because it makes them financially vulnerable is a complete abdication of the responsibility that society has to make room for the fact that women are more often in a childcaring role for reasons connected with their female body. And to protect them when they take on that role (and by extension any men that take on that role as well.)

It's also never going to be really successful, because there will always be families where a parent has to become a caregiver because of things like medical problems.

Higher paid roles tend to require up to date knowledge and experience, rather than just being "organised, capable and dedicated" and to live comfortably as a single mother if your relationship breaks down you're going to need to earn as much as you can.

Working or not working isn't a judgement of any individual - it's purely practical. A woman who continues earning will find leaving a bad relationship and supporting her children on her own much easier than one who has stopped working or stepped back in their career.

She can go back to work? Why on earth would you imagine she'll stop working forever?

What’s that woman going to do though when the kids are teenagers or adults? It’s perfectly reasonable for her spouse not to want to financially support another adult beyond the child rearing years. And if the spouse decides to leave and that woman has no recent employment experience or earning power? Sure, if the spouse is a high earner the divorce settlement might see her right but what if they’re not, and there aren’t any assets to divide? Like it or not, we live in a capitalist society and the best way to ensure security and independence is through work

How is it 'damaging' for women to prioritise motherhood?

So it's for their own good, because we can't trust women to make the best choices for themselves?

What if what is often called a 'gap' on a CV was actually a time that was valued by employers?

I consider a mother to most likely be someone who is organised, capable and dedicated. I don't see child rearing years as a 'gap', but as valuable experience.

Why is it that 'production' is the only thing that's valued?

I think it is yes but that civil partnershipa are the way to go

Even with actively setting everything up for equality and financial independence between DP and myself, we will still get stuck for inheritance tax if one of us dies as can't pass assets, and there's no way round that other than civil partnership or marriage.

There's no other financial disadvantages though, apart from widows pension, if you make the effort to protect yourself.

In our current society, it would encourage even more women to make decisions that are good for them in the short term and bad for them in the medium to long term.

When it comes down to it, being a mother is not enough work over the course of a lifetime. Women as a class have always done far more than look after the kids and setting society up to prioritise that role in a way that lessens women's liklihood to be engaged in other production is really damaging for us.

Omg really?

• because the man could take that money and the woman will have even less chance of independence
• because the woman could use the money for all sorts and neglect her children
• because it gives no options to mothers who have to work (single parents for example)
• because it doesn't encourage men to be more involved with parenting
• because it costs more to administer
• because it makes it easier to defraud the government
• because it will be really unpopular with child free voters who won't want to pay for others to have babies

Just off the top of my head

If the gov can pay for childcare, why can't they pay mothers directly?

As I recall it the argument was that the helplessness of human babies and their dependence on maternal support, meant that women were more programmed towards monogamy. Men for whatever reason, do not have this programming.

This is one argument, rooted in the same gender norms that suggest men are "programmed" to spread their seed. Research into humans and other primates suggests its more complicated than that, and that theory is heavily influenced by Victorian ideals of womanhood and chastity.

In any case humans are an extremely adaptable species and there are indicators that the culture we experience is more important than genetic programming in how we interact with each other.

I distrust anyone who claims innate differences in men's and women's behaviour. It rarely stands up to scientific scrutiny.

And really only very privileged women can make a genuine choice to be a SAHM. Either they have a high earning husband or independent wealth, familial wealth etc. How many working class women who stay at home and claim UC and have a husband earning the national average wage or below, do you think are really a SAHP through choice? Could it be that even both their wages together wouldn’t leave enough left over to live on once they paid for childcare? That’s why affordable childcare is important, as well as housing. Yes, perhaps lower earning women would still choose to stay home even if childcare was more accessible but at least there’d be options for when she did want to return to work.

If you mean things like making wills, or making you the beneficiary of a pension, then you're depending on the other person not to change it without telling you.

What protection could be given? A single income is unlikely to be enough to support two households if they split, so where would the extra money come from to support the non-working parent who hasn't worked for years so is likely to struggle to find a well enough paying job to support themselves?

Increasingly, I think the conservative feminism of Mary Harirngton is worth considering.

As I recall it the argument was that the helplessness of human babies and their dependence on maternal support, meant that women were more programmed towards monogamy. Men for whatever reason, do not have this programming.

So the commitments made in marriage - particularly in an era where women are not trapped in marriage for life - do offer a degree of protection. I think her argument was that women's greater vulnerability meant taking care to choose a man who would take commitment seriously.

There's a younger woman I know who is currently having a really hard time because her high-earning husband is not giving her much support, and they have demanding small children. (Part of me really feel that she may have not made the best choice according to Harrington's criteria.) But I have reminded myself that if she gets really fed up, a good divorce lawyer will at least ensure a decent settlement.

Increasingly housing seems to be absolutely key to all of this. If we want to talk about 'choice' then focus on housing affordibility rather than childcare.

The best protection is to fight for more affordable childcare and for families in which both parents work. Don't ever give up your job for marriage

Or we could fight for better protections for mothers and mothers who choose to be SAHMs?