To want to settle a generation gap argument: older (female) relative is saying women had to give up work when they got married?

[Winnabella]

Got an older female relative (aunt) who gave up work when she married my uncle (now passed away). They got married in 1964. My parents got married in 1970 and my mum carried on working. My grandmother carried on working until she was in her late 70s. But my aunt goes on about how it 'wasn't acceptable' to carry on working after getting married. She's not done too badly being a SAHM but does go on a bit about the sacrifices she made. She had a cleaner and a housekeeper to do the housework and she and my uncle had 2 children. My cousins often joke about how they had to wear their pyjamas for two weeks. My aunt came round on Sunday and she went on and on about the job she did just before she got married. It is a bit like she's been stuck in time - this was nearly 50 years ago now. Was it the case that women were frowned upon in the 1960s for working if they got married; and how come my mother and grandmother seemed to hold down jobs (my mum part time after I was born and before I started school)

@Georgyporky

Posters stating that all women HAD to give up work are wrong - unless they mean outside the U.K. Maybe certain employers forced women to give up work, but none of my contemporaries from that era had to do so. Maternity leave was available , maximum 18 weeks on half-pay & back to work when baby was 6 weeks old.

I didn't even get that in 1992 because I hadn't been there long enough. They graciously said that they couldn't sack me because I was pregnant, but that my work would be absorbed by the remaining staff and I was therefore redundant with a month's notice.

When I did go back to work after DD was born, I had to keep her existence a secret because nobody wanted to employ a young unmarried Mum - the contract that was terminated at the end of the three month's probation where I was doing fine, but 24 hours after somebody spotted me with DD at the weekend and I was asked 'do you have a kid?' comes to mind in 1997 - and in one place, the boss disapproved of it so much that although he would take women back after having a baby, he would only do it on a part time basis because whilst he 'understood that not all men are able or willing to fulfil their responsibilities to the family', he wasn't 'prepared for it to be at the expense of the children involved'. If somebody said she needed full time hours, he would provide glowing references for her, but his company never 'needed' somebody to return fulltime. He never knew I had a child.

Temping agencies were also a nightmare. If they knew you had a child, they didn't put you forward for jobs, as they didn't want clients pissed off by somebody having to stay off work to deal with a sick child, wanting time off during the school holidays or having more babies before they could get the permanent hire payment/earned the maximum amount in overinflated hourly rates.

2007 was the first time I didn't feel that having children was a problem for an employer and that was the NHS. As long as I didn't expect time off in the school holidays, that was being selfish and entitled when women without children didn't have that 'excuse'.

I do hope you apologise to your relative for not believing her, OP. She was absolutely telling the truth - and whilst very poor or wealthier women may have been able to work, the ones in the middle would have been prevented by a combination of employer rules and social pressure upon both her and her husband.

I was married in 1967, aged 25.and had been working since I left school aged 15. , I had to move to a different county after our marriage, because of Husbands job after he finished at UNI. I then got another job very soon after marriage and moving. but gave up work when our first child was born in 1971. there was no way I wanted a child to be in any kind of childcare at all, and both sets of our parents lived miles away,so I didn't need,or want any childcare from them.

I have always been very adept at doing most things home wise,like all diy and decorating, and landscaping gardens etc, and all organisation of my own children's upbringing. My husband often had to go to business stuff abroad in his job at times. so everything worked well for us..

I was considering doing some work later, either DIY, or decorating for other people, but then my daughter was born in 1975, and just before she was one year old,my Husband got the opportunity to work in the USA within his job, for all of us to go there for three years.

I didn't work over there, but it was such a great experience to be there for three years.

I have had a few little jobs when in my fifties and sixties, as in care home work, supermarket work, and helping out a friend in her vintage clothes and vintage items shop.

I was a ward sister in the NHS when I married in 1981, not a problem until I got pregnant in 1983, I wasn’t able to take maternity leave as “regulations” stated that in order to take mat leave, you had to return at the same grade, on the same hours.
My then husband worked shifts and weekends too, and we had no family nearby to help, so I had lo leave, returning part time as a staff nurse on nights when my baby was 7 months old. He’s 37 now.
It took me years to claw my way back up to the same grade.

@BowserJr

My parents got married in the 1970s. Apparently they raised a few eyebrows by my mum continuing to work and not having DB until they had been married a few years. Mum was well and truly sent packing once up the duff though and hasn't worked for over 40 years.

My mum once got sacked from a job for wearing trousers.

I wasn't allowed to wear trousers to work in the late 80's/early 90s. I don't know what would have happened if I had broken the dress code but I didn't dare risk it. At the time it was "normal". Female nurses were still wearing starched dresses and frilly hats, female police officers wore skirts etc.It seems ridiculous when I look back and I am angry with myself that I didn't challenge it. But I was a young woman in a man's world and I, like many, more or less expected to be treated less favourably in the workplace.I was the first woman to be head of department at my work. In 2002. We do well to remember what has been won by women in recent history and not take it for granted. Or we risk being put right back there.

@Lookingoutside

My friend once told me that M&S didn’t employ married women. That female staff ‘had to leave’ when they got married. I always wondered whether it was true or not but could find a definitive answer.

I worked for them in the 70s and it wasn't true then

This was definitely a thing when children were involved. I know that when my grandma had my mum, her first child, in 1954 she lost her permanency as a teacher in Scotland, as it was expected that the permanent jobs should go to male ‘breadwinners’ (funnily enough, my granda, also a teacher in the same area, didn’t suffer the same fate). Although this didn’t mean she lost her job entirely, when she returned to work after having her baby she could be posted to any school in the education authority as a supply teacher, some of which were really far from where she lived. This made it almost impossible to juggle work and caring for her baby, so she eventually gave up work and didn’t return to teaching for a decade, until her youngest child was at school

My Mum's contract with a large national building society was terminated once she was married. This was 1965.

My father worked away a lot so they were not planning children straight away. So, after a year, they later took her back on, in a part time role only, junior to her original role, after lots of ums and ahs and pointing out this was a big deal and not usual procedure.

She had to leave that role in 1969 when still in early pg with my brother as being visibly pregnant was unseemly

My parents born in the 30's.
You started work at 14 as a female and gave up when you got married.
Especially teachers, no Mrs they were all miss.
If you were married to a Policeman you had to give up work too.

My Mum and Dad married in 1971 and my Mum continued to work ft as a typist, however when she told her employer she was pregnant in 1972, her employer sacked her due to her pregnancy, as she would 'take too much time off when pregnant'

@1Morewineplease

MIL had to give up her job in the bank (1959) when she got married. This practice carried on into the sixties in many jobs.

I remember it being frowned upon to work after having babies. The argument was 'why have babies if you can't be bothered to look after them?'

Not to mention finding someone to look after them...

@MrsAvocet I went in with trousers on and was challenged by the director. I told them it was ridiculous and I wasn't going home to change and just carried on with my job! I was only about 22/23 but I was a gobby cow, even then!

My mum had to give up her civil service job when she married.

When I was at work in the 80s a male colleague got promoted and a bigger rise than a female colleague simply because he had a family to support, the woman was told this was the reason and he needed the money more than her.

@Winnabella

Got an older female relative (aunt) who gave up work when she married my uncle (now passed away). They got married in 1964. My parents got married in 1970 and my mum carried on working. My grandmother carried on working until she was in her late 70s. But my aunt goes on about how it 'wasn't acceptable' to carry on working after getting married. She's not done too badly being a SAHM but does go on a bit about the sacrifices she made. She had a cleaner and a housekeeper to do the housework and she and my uncle had 2 children. My cousins often joke about how they had to wear their pyjamas for two weeks. My aunt came round on Sunday and she went on and on about the job she did just before she got married. It is a bit like she's been stuck in time - this was nearly 50 years ago now. Was it the case that women were frowned upon in the 1960s for working if they got married; and how come my mother and grandmother seemed to hold down jobs (my mum part time after I was born and before I started school)

So are you going to tell your aunt that you accept she's right?

I started teaching in 1975; I don’t remember being told that trousers were not allowed for women, but no female teachers wore them. They all seemed to think trousers were forbidden. Rather than ask, three of us new young women all decided we would go in to school in trousers on a particular day. We did, and nothing was said. Many other female teachers began to wear them too and it soon became the norm.
We were also advised to remove engagement rings when going for interviews 😏

Depends how rich you are. Working class women could rarely afford to stay at home. My granny worked all hours and her sister had the kids. My mum gave up work as she was over 40 before she got married and had a bit if cash behind her

I left school in 1974 after doing Olevels but it was always seen that DB who was two years younger than me would have a more important job as he would have to support a family. I was constantly told this by my DPs.

My mum married in the early 80s. Worked throughout, even after having children. She's never stopped working.

Working class women have always worked. If we relied of my fathers income, we'd have lived below the poverty line.

I think "having" to give up work once married was a privilege of the middle classes.

@Hankunamatata

Depends how rich you are. Working class women could rarely afford to stay at home. My granny worked all hours and her sister had the kids. My mum gave up work as she was over 40 before she got married and had a bit if cash behind her

Snap!

Women couldn't get a mortgage in their own until mid 1980s

So are you going to tell your aunt that you accept she's right?

But is she right? . She may have had to give up work for that particular employer in 1964. There is absolutely no reason that she should never have worked again between 1964 and retirement age.

@Hankunamatata

Depends how rich you are. Working class women could rarely afford to stay at home. My granny worked all hours and her sister had the kids. My mum gave up work as she was over 40 before she got married and had a bit if cash behind her

Yes, I think it was the ones in the middle, in the office type jobs that it mainly affected, what they call middle income nowadays.

I think this is partly why we have had to take decades to establish better working rights and better attitudes towards women in the workplace.

Our current inequalities relating to pay or representation at senior levels have origins in the very real views that women didn't need jobs once they got married, and then had children too, and when they did they were rarely a chief breadwinner.

Women couldn't get a mortgage in their own until mid 1980s

Yes they could and I did in 1982.

I feel terribly sorry for your aunt, OP - it sounds like she has lived a sort of thwarted life in a gilded cage. How sad that that earlyish period of her life has overshadowed the rest of it, she obviously feels like her life has been only half lived and, rather than being lazy and entitled, wishes she had been able to carry on working (I would suppose in large part because it would have given her a small measure of independence?). Was she kind of expected to have a cleaner and housekeeper as befitting someone in her position? A friend of mine grew up in South Africa with several servants which we find hilariously lazy but it would have been massively socially unacceptable of their family not to employ people, there is not much of a welfare state there so people of a certain income level who don't have servants are viewed as very selfish and greedy, wanting to keep all their money to themselves rather than supporting other people with jobs.

It's really good that you have asked about this and been open to people's answers, well done for being open minded which is hard to do when there's a bit of a pile on It's lovely to think that now you will be able to understand your aunt a bit better when she brings all of this up again.