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 live in Mexico and my in-laws are great believers in marrying well. My dd's cousin told her that as all men will make you cry it is better to cry in a jacuzzi than cutting onions. Unfortunately said cousin did "marry well" and she is now a shadow of her former self.

Where's Xenia when you need her??

Should we encourage our daughters to be gold diggers?

I do agree, yes. It took me a long time to find a man who was both kind, and able to support me to be a SAHM. I don't think I would have been able to work and be a Mum so it really was a necessity for me. It's hard, but I think that realistically people do need money to live.

I think mainly it all comes down to whether the girl is keen to be a working Mum or not. If not, then it makes a lot of sense to marry someone who can afford a lifestyle that the girl can manage to live.

I learned a lot from Jane Austen.

Well, I certainly wish my parents had had some form of opinion about the type of man I should show an interest in. I was a SAHM for some time and was really good at it. The house sparkled, the kids were happy, the garden was lovely and o was cooking and baking up a storm. Now I'm divorced and stuck in a dead-end job trying to pay bills on my little salary and child support. If I was going to marry a bastard (thanks parents for zero direction on what qualities to look for in a man) then I wish he'd been a rich one!

I'm in two minds regarding this post....

Part of me agrees that I would like my daughter to marry well - to ensure that she has a comfortable life, be able to afford all the things that she would want to do. To have a partner who has a job that brings stability to her life BUT

All of the above doesn't always bring happiness. I've been with my DH for 16 years (since I was 17) He left school with hardly any qualifications but has worked hard to better himself. Unfortunately he was young and got into debt - something we as a team worked through to sort out. Our life normally is just comfortable but over the past 4 years he's faced 3 redundancies with 3 different companies so it has been difficult.

Would I change what I have? No....... he is just about to start a career in the police (stability) we have 2 beautiful children together and he treats me like a princess.

Yes more money would be nice but you can't always have everything! xx

I give my son and daughter pretty much the same advice. To do otherwise would be very odd to me. I've not talked much about getting married though, seems like a long way off and also a bit intrusive (both in late teens).

If I told dd to find a rich man, then should I also be telling ds to become rich or forget about having a family? I tell them both to work hard and make their dreams become a possibility. dd would like to have a family at some point, but she is as likely to do that with a woman as a man so it would be a bit tone deaf of me to tell her she will only be happy with a rich guy. ds tells me that he isn't really bothered about having a family and isn't planning on marriage anyway.

dh was a SAHD for a while when they were young, and I've generally been the higher earner (although not with much of a margin and dh has just got a better paying role than me) so they've seen that things can change over time. Plus advice wise I'd tell them both to earn well if they can, to bring benefits to the world from their endeavours and to be present parents as having a SAHP has a number of risks (no plan b, loss of assets if you divorce and possibly loss of children too). Equality is a far less risky prospects on all fronts.

To me marrying well would be a partner who did a genuine equal share of domestic shitwork, planning and thinking and childcare if relevant.

Because financial independence, going to work and performing well is a great deal easier if you're not the one keeping all the balls in the air at home too.

'Marrying well' isn't going to help you if he becomes ill and can't continue in the big job that the family is dependent on.

Why not encourage sons to marry smart career orientated women so that they can laze around at home be stay at home dads?

I have always stressed to my daughter to be financially reliant on no one but yourself - work hard and earn your own money so you don't need any one else to support you

Women who marry for money are just glorified prostitutes, surely

I'm sure Xenia has said similar in the past. Men who want to not work and not pay their way are called cocklodgers yet its women who are far more likely to not work or pay their way so what does that make them?

It's a depressing thread, where men are seen as a walking cashpoint and there for what they provide. I hope my daughter isn't that fickle or lazy and that my son can spot a gold digger after reading this.

As this is an anonymous forum I am going to be completely honest, so please don't "flame" me.
I didn't marry for money, although I did marry a highly motivated and ambitious man who I loved. He always had a strong sense of responsibility and I guess I knew he would "make it" financially, given a few years. I was honest about my own priorities. I knew that when I had children I wouldn't want to leave them in childcare unless absolutely necessary. I could have had a professional career and I did for a while, but once the DC came along my priorities changed completely. My husband has a strong sense of being a "provider" in the financial sense and this is largely what motivates him. We both know that money does not buy happiness, but it does make life easier in terms of opportunities and choices.
In retrospect, the fact that I've been 100%financially dependent on one man for 15 years and through 3 DC has been a huge gamble. BUT, I loved him and I trusted he was not the type to leave me high and dry in the event of a split. Also the time I've had with the DC has been invaluable and our lives have been less stressful all round. DH respects me as a SAHM and his wife and the benefits this has entailed. In recent years he's made multi-millions. If we ever did split in the future (let's hope not)! I would actually be more wealthy than if I had been working all these years. I've never had to worry about my own financial security or that of the DC, which I know is unusual and odd, but I can't say I regret it either.
Sorry if that sounds arrogant or smug, but this has been my life experience. Many of my friends are in very similar positions, but I'm very aware my lifestyle would not be for everyone. I would not tell my daughters to marry for money, but I would tell them to be honest about what they want from life and marry a man who has integrity and shared values.

Fundamentally disagree. Wanting to "marry well" ( in that sense) just indicates a huge lack of self respect and infantilising of the woman imo

"Until women are equal to men, I'm not sure it's a good idea for a woman to marry a man who earns a lot less than her."

I agree with this, and this whole post.

If you want to have children, marrying a man who is prepared to work hard in partnership with you, is very important. You need to both want to willingly support each other, without resentment.

It is effectively impossible to find a man who is prepared to do any of the work of childrearing or homemaking to the same standard as a woman, willingly, without resentment.

you are more likely to find a high-earning man who is doing his bit by supporting his wife materially and emotionally, than a mid- to low-earning man (or any man) who is prepared to do his bit at home or by acknowledging any of this stuff. they might do bits of it, but they resent it, and withdraw any emotional support. or resent being asked to, don't do it, and withdraw the emotional support.

You can, of course, still end up with an abusive selfish rich bastard. But more money in a relationship means more resource and there is at least the possibility and the hope of comfort. a man who can't or won't provide means a woman who has to do every single damn thing.

Sick of the 'tell your daughters to be ambitious for themselves' lobby. I did encourage my dd to work hard at school and to get fulfilling, well paid work. Sadly she dicked around, left school with 2 GCSE's and at 18 is now looking for care assistant work. Eventually she wants to go back into education and at some point train as a nurse. A good job, yes? Important, fulfilling. But unless she marries someone who earns more than twice a nurse's salary she will never be able to afford to buy a home.

I'd still want her to marry primarily for love though.

Well, she will, mini, otherwise no single nurse ever (or even a nurse married to another nurse) would ever be able to buy a house.

Totally agree with MorrisZapp

"
I'd much rather see women taught about the financial realities of packing their jobs in to raise a family. Nearly every thread in relationships which involves a woman unable to leave an abusive man includes financial dependency"

So many women are lulled into a false sense of security and give up their jobs and then get trapped in a marriage or relationship they can't leave.

We also need to teach women to apply for roles that are above their current role, I've definitely noticed a lot of women just side step. We also need to teach them to negotiate their salary, I always do this even in the public sector. Rarely has my request been declined and the once it was declined I negotiated with my manager the ability to work flexibly and gain experience on a project I was interested in. I don't know alot of women who negotiate their salary whereas men do. None of this has anything to do with marrying anyone and that's how it should be.

I would say a really important thing is having similar goals, similar ambitions, a few mutual interests, similar outlook on life. Open communication, honesty, fidelity, a career plan achieved or working towards. Similar expectations on children, childcare, parenting, the same or close to relationship with money. Plus if they drink, do drugs, smoking, how does that impact you, as people are unlikely to change that much.

You should feel at ease sharing finances in one pot, not I earn more so I spend more. Expectations on housing if it's possible to get on the housing ladder without a lottery win in a decade or more.

When it comes to marriage, the person should be your best friend as well as partner. A similar sense of humour helps, the niggles that annoy you, how much do they annoy you.

(Thinking to the friend whose boyfriend ate whilst making noises like he was having sex with the food, which was average food at best, plus being way too excited about a wedding reception where the bride said he could take what he wanted from the buffet at the end of the night. Even I was taken aback and embarrassed for her as he balanced trays on his knee in my new car, with her holding left over trifle!)

What do you consider a "golden career", OP?

Similar attitudes to money too. I met dh when I was 16. Luckily we seem to share a a lot of the same values (saving vs spending etc) but it could have all gone horribly wrong. Or maybe our attitudes weren't set at that point and we became adults together.

As a mother of daughters I want them to aim for the sky so that they are never required to depend on a man and marry someone who they love. However I would encourage, or at least hope that they would find someone who had the financial capacity to enable them to be SAHM's in the initial years, should they wish.

My dsis married a really lovely guy, he is caring, dependable, loves the bones off her and he has a lovely family too. He earns significantly less than her making her the breadwinner and it is highly unlikely that he will ever make any 'progress' in the career ladder. I think when they had their first child she might have more than slightly resented him, she had to go back to work before 6 months as they are very reliant on her full salary. I know lots of women do that, but for me I couldn't have imagined having to go back that early, it would have literally tipped me over the edge. I know she would have loved to take the whole year off, but there was no way this was possible.

First and foremost I'll be encouraging my daughter to have her own financial independence.

If she does want to marry I will encourage her to think through the practical ramifications of marrying someone who doesn't earn much. I have some friends who have married men who they love but do not earn much. They have become pretty bitter and twisted as a result of the fact they wanted a certain type of life and they now can't have it. I do have some friends that also married low earning men who are happy as Larry. I suppose my point is that I will encourage my daughter to be aware of the practical repercussions of her decisions and to own them.

As a feminist, surely you can see that encouraging your daughters to take any path that perpetuates the status quo (wage gap and all) is not the answer.

Encourage your daughters to take a path that does not lead to poverty or dependence; and that is filled with love. And i will do the same for my sons. My "unambitious" DP is a wonderful SAHD and my career-ism is a means to an end to facilitate that. My DSs are loved, parented by both of us. Our life is affordable and full of respect for what the other one brings to the table. I am eternally grateful that my dear (late) mother never encouraged me to seek anything in a partner, apart from partnership.

Silver presumably they could have had that life by earning the money themselves

Stealth - they could have done and that's what I like to think my daughter would do.

In my friends cases they both went into working part time because their husbands encouraged it and they allowed it. It was almost as if their dh's were trying to prove a point. I will say they don't have bad lives but they don't have the Aga and ponies they grew up with. They are both capable women who could have easily had the salaries they desired their husbands have but don't. That might be different for a younger generation.