AIBU to think we should encourage our daughters to 'marry well'?

[windygallows]

I know 'marrying well' is something our mothers and grandmothers crowed about but it's not a phrase I've heard much these days and it feels quite an anti-feminist sentiment in a world where women can do well without men.

Yet I wonder if marrying well - marrying into money or marrying someone who is in a well-paid profession - is something we should be encouraging our daughters to do. Why? Because not every woman wants to have a career and if you want to be a SAHM then really that's easiest if your DH is well paid. Also women still experience a pay gap and are in lower-paid roles by comparison, so having a well paid DH really does make up that pay gap.

Plus - when I look around at my female friends and peers (I'm mid-40s) of the ones who have a comfortable lifestyle and are able to work part-time or be SAHM, for about 3/4 that lifestyle is attributed to having a well-paid or wealthy DH. The other 1/4 got there through their work/career, family money etc. This is purely a sample of my peers, by no means the norm.

I'm a staunch feminist so it's a bit hard to write this but I'm also a single parent and know what a slog it can be making everything work on my own salary. Marrying well doesn't mean a good marriage or relationship but it does make things easier. In the end shouldn't we be having an honest conversation with our daughters about this and encouraging them to think a bit more about 'marrying well'?

I wonder how many marriages work really well when it's the woman who earns most of the money? Not many I reckon

So if women have chosen a well paid career they shouldn't marry someone who earns less? I was a doctor and my first pay cheque was more than my dh's teacher pay even though he'd been working for years. It's all family money. Why does it matter who technically earned it?

Why would a marriage not work well if the woman was the higher earner?

It seems to work well enough for me and DH n

it works well for loads of women. I am always surprised by women who think if their husbands earned less than they do there would be some big kind of problem - may be for the sexist men they married but not for most men out there!

Do men get upset when their wives earn more? Really?

I think DH would bloody love it if I did. And the only reason I dint is that he earns silly money.

Would our marriage really suffer if I had a bumper year and he didn't?.

The irony is that when your income gets to a certain point you have a different set of problems than a man being upset that his wife earns more. We work a lot of ours and the focus is on getting the right help in terms of childcare and making sure we spend enough time with the kids.

tinsel totally agree with you. I regret going to university. It was a waste of three years when I could have been earning and gaining experience. Started having kids at 31. I met DH when I was 26. Would have been better to have started having babies at 28 after we married.

I encourage my sons to marry well - although I don't use that phrase, I do tell them to choose wisely. They're only 12 and 10 but I know they won't listen to me when they're older so I'm getting my opinions in early and gradually while I can .

I tell them they should choose someone that is as well educated as they are, who is following a career path of similar status (no harm in having two options for who takes the career break when children are born), who is kind and loving, someone who recognises and values a stable family life (i.e. take extra care if they're not from stable background themselves), and most of all someone they are, and can always be, best friends with.

I also tell them that they should get to know, and hopefully like, the parents and siblings - even if their potential partner is nothing like them, those are the genes their children may inherit, and those are the visitors who will be regularly in contact!

Finally, I tell them that if there's something they've always admired in others but never managed to emulate - be it musical ability, artistic talent etc - it's a good opportunity to help their own future children to achieve that. (I was rubbish at sport, and married someone sporty - now I have 2 sporty boys and love watching them play!).

"Do men get upset when their wives earn more? Really?"

Some do, yes. It might mean their own jobs taking back seat, having to relocate for the wife's job for example. If the higher earner is relocated somewhere outside the EU (and even inside soon) it's usually the case that the lower earner can't get a work permit and has to be a housewife/husband even if they don't want to. When I was an expat/immigrant there was a group men who called themselves STUDS (spouses transferred under duress). It was a bit tongue in cheek of course, but some men can't cope with it.

It can be difficult for the women too. A friend of mine with a phd goes to work parties with her husband who is a manual worker and gets asked if she has any qualifications when her job is way above anyone in the room.

"Truth be told anyone can have more earning potential if they work at it"

Yes Im sure my DM could have looked for the crock of gold at the end of a rainbow while working the fields when she was growing up in post war Italy

So many thoughts re this this thread. In some ways I agree with bits of the OPs sentiment but I am disgusted with myself for doing so and fuming at some of the responses.

I am the main earner. DH is the SAHP. It wasn't planned & sometimes I wish I married a man with a more lucrative career, or one that didn't want a career change at 40. But that's on a bad day. On a good day I know it makes sense for my kids, that's he's the better SAHP, that I like my work & that he's damn good around the house. Compared to my friends I have a, shock horror, very equal gender divide at home. I had an honest conversation a few weeks back with a friend about housework etc and could not believe how little her DH does. She also works too. It causes a lot of stress for her, much more so than people realise. I am so glad my DH is not like that.

My marriage is living proof that men can cope with earning less than their wives (If they are not a totally fucked up misogynist prick that is).

I also bf both kids til toddler hood. Still bf boob monster DD. Went back to work at 7 months with her. You can bf and work if you want to. Citing bf in the feminism debate is a total red herring, unless you are wanting to take on formula companies as an enemy of women or something. The UK has worse bf rates than the US, where maternity leave is a bag of shit & most women with jobs have to return to work after a matter of weeks.

Mmm what else. Well in this day and age, sadly, earnings matter far less than wealth if you are ever gonna buy a (decent) house. The two friends i know who have genuinely very comfortable lives, living in their dream house etc both have well off parents who could help the invest in their first property. One didn't marry until very recently & also earned highly herself but admitted to me she'd never have bought her flat without her parents assistance. The other has a high earning DH but in terms of property she wouldn't live in the house she does now without initial investment in their first home from her mum (think his parents helped too). So by saying to girls you should marry well, for it to make economic sense you have to mean marry a man from a family with wealth, and that's a sad state of affairs. I guess I'd be richer now if I'd headed this advice and fought off DH on discovering he grew up in a single parent household living in poverty but then I would have denied myself love. I like to think the person whom you marry matters more than their background, though maybe heading that advice is perhaps a reason wealth perpetuates. I've always noticed people from well off families marry those from well off families while those from poorer backgrounds tend to find others who also struggle somehow. It's got a lot to do with circles you mix in I guess, but this even happened amongst the couples I know who got together at my uni - it was pretty posh and the more normals sought each other out and found each other & the richer did the same!

I dunno....

I know many women trapped in horrendously unhappy marriages who can't afford to leave.

"Marry well" surely means marry a kind man who you love and loves you but who also is hardworking.

I want to encourage my children to be independent so that if the shit hits the fan, they can afford to leave. Not very romantic!

So keeping in with your parents might be as sensible as marrying a woman or man who earns a lot! (help with housing, childcare etc)..Mind you they often go together - if you want to marry a job less drug user your parents tend not to support that. If a lawyer child wants to marry a doctor fiance the parents tend to support those kinds of matches. It's the equality that matters.

gwen you've given a very extreme example of men unhappy to earn less.

IME trailing spouses of either sex are often unhappy. Especially if the choice to move was against their wishes.

That's simply not evidence that marriages where men earn less are more likely to be unsuccessful. It is evidence that moving to a country that you don't want to live through and being unable to work when you get there can be problematic.

No shit Sherlock.

I married 3 times divorced, widowed, ongoing and I honestly feel it is so important for a woman to have the means to be totally independent. So when I was a sahm it was with free access to a joint bank account.
I was lucky to have a career I loved (teaching) and have always had a comfortable (not wealthy) lifestyle. My dd has followed a similar path. What matters most is mutual love and respect whether on a council estate or a country estate.

"It is evidence that moving to a country that you don't want to live through and being unable to work when you get there can be problematic."

Yes, but it's quite common for a couple/family to have to move for the job of the higher earner, whether it's to a different country or just to another town so it's something that should be taken into account I think (also for women "marrying up" of course).

gwen that may be true. But has nothing to do with whether the higher earner is male or female .

I'm astounded someone would even suggest it's a bad thing for the woman in a marriage to earn more than a man. My mother is a very successful professional (and fantastic mum), though doesn't earn as much as my dad that's just chance and it wouldn't be an issue in the slightest if she did (he's always supported and encouraged her career) and I have a couple of friends whose mothers out-earn their fathers.

If I settle down with a boy he'll be one who fully supports my career ambitions. I wouldn't even think of whether he'd be happy with me earning more than him because it's so ridiculous to think it'd be an issue.

Marrying well seems a very old kind of sentiment, however, yes I do agree.

Whilst I would like DD to be independent, I want her to marry a strong, dependable and financially sound man who can support her through pregnancy etc.

Sadly, I equate this with a man's masculinity.

A woman I know married "well". A nice guy, very wealthy well connected family. She admits she doesn't love him but has a fabulous life style, huge house, as much of everything she wants, all paid for by him as she's never done a days working her life. I want my DDS to be strong and independent yes, but I want them to have that level of lifestyle and opportunity, not the one I have had.So yeas marry a rich bloke. If it goes tits up, get divorced and take the money. Cynical? Yes. But that's what I've learned from my life and the lives of those around me.

But why do you assume the man will be the one bringing home the money

Get an education, marry well AND someone you love (they aren't mutually exclusive) and you've covered the bases. Except for illness, accidents and death, of course! There are no guarantees in life.

God it's sad that in this age marrying well still implies a rich husband.

I equate this with a man's masculinity

Agree. A man who can support his partner & children has a lot more going in the 'masculinity' dept.

It's great to have a good well paid job if you're single, or married & childless. But once you have kids it's much easier to have a man who can support you all for a few years.
Very few woman want to go back to work when their baby is just 6 months old. & any woman who says she's more than happy to leave her pfb all day at a nursery is probably lying.

Why would you want that?

Agree. A man who can support his partner & children has a lot more going in the 'masculinity' dept.

What an outdated outlook. My mum and plenty of women who've posted on this thread, plenty of mothers out there now, have no need to be "supported" by a man. To suggest a man's ability to do this is tied to some societal imposed notion of "masculinity" is ridiculous and places unnecessary pressure on men.

Oh and why is it not "great to have a good well paid job" for a woman if she's a mother? Also I'd say "if you have kids" not "once you have kids".

Maybe ask the baby who's at nursery all day what he/she would rather have!

After maternity leave my mum has always worked full time. She's a fantastic mum and I'm incredibly lucky to have her.