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)

@CecilyP

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.

but there is the amused hint that the aunt's husband may have been the domineering sort. the possible reality of that is not amusing at all.

In the 1940s my grandmother worked for Martins Bank ( I think it became Barclays) and the rule then was that you had to resign upon marriage.

So my grandmother just didn't tell anyone that she had got married. Unfortunately she became pregnant with my mum very quickly and had to resign when she started to show.

She also told me that female staff had to arrive and leave by the back door and were not under any circumstances allowed to be seen by the customers so were not permitted to be in the banking hall area it behind the cashiers run.

She was really proud of me when I got my first managerial job in banking.

My mum worked for the civil service. Her job was terminated when she had me in 1974. It was part of her contract. She could remain a civil servant whilst married but not once she became a mother.

She went back to work part time when I was about 5 - 1979. Some of my friends mothers had jobs. But they were all 'jobs' - none of them were able to go back to careers.

@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.

In about 1973 a woman walked into the school staffroom wearing trousers, sharp intakes of breath all round. She asked the Head if he thought women should be able to wear trousers and he said No, so she started to remove them! From then, trousers were allowed.

I once got a job because I wasn't wearing trousers, apparently the Head, female, had said to the other interviewers I don't want the trouble maker in trousers!333

OP This should be taught in schools! The civil service, some unis and the teaching profession even post WW2 had rules about women giving up jobs on marriage. Don't think it applied in the post WW2 NHS for doctors and nurses. I do remember even in the Seventies you had to have your father/husband guaranteeing some bank accounts and mortgages.

However my DM worked throughout her life - good brain but left school at 16 in 1946. Got into publishing and later politics.

My nan is 85 and gave up work when she retired and moved to a seaside town. My grandad who is 88 always worked aswell.

My mum had to give up her job when she got married in 1966. Higher Education wasn’t much better. Access was restricted for women at many universities - Cambridge didn’t even award women full degrees until 1948 - less than 75 years ago.

@HirplesWithHaggis

In 1978 my dad opened a new branch of a massive chain store. It was mostly retail work, so not an awful lot of training required, but he wouldn't employ married women "because they just go off and have babies" and he had to train "new girls". (The work primarily attracted women.)

This, a father of three daughters.

My previous solicitor told me he didn't like to employ young women as they got pregnant and this was definitely last decade, not several decades ago.

I worked as an Occupational health Nurse for a National Supermarket Chain when l first got Married, l continued working until my first Child was born, but the hours required by the Company were difficult to arrange adequate Childcare for, as they often required working a long way from home and providing evening cover up until 8pm at night, so l was forced to leave.

The next few years until DD started School l was a SAHM, DH worked Shifts in the Engineering industry, so even part time hours would have been difficult to cover for Childcare. My own Mother was also undergoing Cancer treatment, and l had no other family locally who could have helped us. Not many women did work full time unless they were unmarried and/or Childless. It was still a big Taboo to have a baby without being married to its Father, and it was considered ‘best Practice’ to address all unmarried mothers attending the Antenatal clinics that l worked in during my Training as ‘Mrs’ and never ‘Miss’ followed by their surname. We were only allowed to use Christian names when a woman was in Labour, and with their permission!

I finally returned to work via The School of Nursing by signing up to do a further Course to work in Mental Health, something that l became involved in when my Grandad was admitted to the Elderly Ward of our local Psychiatric Hospital, and l knew the Charge Nurse on the Ward, and over the weeks that followed, he persuaded me to apply.

My next move on completion of my course was to sign upto a Nursing agency, this gave me brilliant flexibility on the Hours l actually worked, took me to some beautiful places, and into the homes of some lovely people. The rates of pay were better than the NHS were as well, and as my Children grew up and became more independent, l sometimes got to travel with my patient too!

Thankfully a lot of the old Victorian Taboos regarding Women are long gone, there is a lot more freedom of choice, and thankfully our NHS removed a lot of the bad practices suffered by women treated by the local so called ‘Quack’, often with a disastrous outcome.

My mum is 86 and she told me women were expected to give up work when they got married until soon after she started work. This changed to being expected to give up work once you were 'expecting' or 'In the family way'.

Hi OP, I agree that it is totally mind-bending that all this was so recent and so while I feel sorry for your aunt, I do understand your initial scepticism.

I think that with many types of historic discrimination, people are perfectly happy to understand that several hundred years isn't actually all that long (and that the systemic effects may well still have a bearing) and still be outraged about it, but for some reason the many and varied ways in which women were treated as second class citizens mere decades ago is either brushed aside ("it was ages ago, it's better now, get over it") or treated like a mildly interesting or amusing anecdote at a cocktail party.

I'll let you come to your own conclusions about why that might be, but let me know if you'd like my theories!

My gran gave up work on marriage, but that was the 1930s, mum gave up work on pregnancy in mid 70s. I know nurses had to give up work on marriage but was probably 50s or so

I said Yabu because why does it matter what she tells you? Does it need to be an argument? She has her memories of her past. Can you not respect that?

[quote harknesswitch]@DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat that's exactly what happens to my dm in 1972 when she told her employer she was pregnant with me [/quote]
The other thing that really shocked me in that program was when the very young man (ie new to the job and working in general) joined the workforce and at the end of the week his pay packet was significantly higher than the women he was working with, some of whom had decades of experience (I think they linked to the real life Dagenham strikes to illustrate it really did happen)

Yep. My mother got married in late 1966 and was expected to give up her job immediately. She was 2 months pregnant, but her employer did not know - and this was an American employer in the music business, with supposedly 'enlightened and feminist' policies...

My mother however wanted to be a SAHM at the timeand didn't end up working again for 22 years. She was 47 when she next worked and only worked for a year (was forced to when my father left for OW), once she got her divorce settlement she stopped and never worked again. She now lives in a tiny HA flat on a disability pension in Australia, and admits not going back to work when my younger brother started school was the biggest mistake she's ever made.

my cousin who was a teacher told me that even quite recently in catholic schools, not private ones, women teachers were not permitted to wear trousers.
and strangely some catholic schools do not permit girl pupils to wear trousers.
i wonder why. i mean it's not like eg orthodox jewish, where it is a religious dictum. there is nothing in catholic faith about women wearing trousers.

When I joined the Civil Service in 1978 my boss was a "Miss G..." She never told the department that she had married as she would have had to resign so Miss G.. in work she was.

I flat shared at that time in London with an Irish woman who worked for Allied Irish Bank. Not only would she have to resign if she married she was also being paid less for doing the exact same job as her male colleagues.

In my family the woman have always worked. Ancestors mostly worked in the mills or as shop assistants. My mother qualified as a SRN and had 3 months off when she had me (1955) but went back to work and eventually took early retirement in her late 50s. Mum had a career and Dad was extremely proud of her. He did used to help his Cricket Club friends' widows with the paperwork when their husbands died as many hadn't worked and had no idea about finances.

She must feel hurt, dismissed and her sacrifices diminished if family is so skeptical. Even if framed as jokes. Let's face it, even in today's UK from what I have seen (only been here 3 years) there several factors that force women to curtail their careers. And having all the household help in the world would not and should not invalidate those sacrifices. Would be nice to show her this thread. That MN believe her and her sacrifices are valid as those of That worked.

Could well have done; give her a break. The 1960s was practically a different planet to the world we inhabit today.

A friend of mine at school (late 90s/early 00s) had a Mum who was forced to leave her job - in the civil service(!) - when she got pregnant for the first time (the pregnancy in question was in the 1980s).

I some jobs but not all...as far as I can tell, the more working class you were the more you could work after marriage. Often one wage wouldn't have been enough to feed a family.

My great-grandmother worked in a pottery factory after marriage.

My grandmother was married about the same time as your aunt (my DM was born in 1963 and I think she was already pregnant) and worked after marriage in various factories.

Not quite the same but my mother was sacked from her office job in 1971 for having the temerity to get pregnant to a man that didn't want to marry her.

My mum had to give up her job as cabin crew in the late 60s when she got married. The only employed single women. She took her engagement ring off when she was working.

My aunt worked for Natwest bank and had to leave when she got married in around 1975. She also wasn't able to avail of the cheap mortgage which was offered to male employees, (my dad got one)

In about 1973 a woman walked into the school staffroom wearing trousers, sharp intakes of breath all round. She asked the Head if he thought women should be able to wear trousers and he said No, so she started to remove them! From then, trousers were allowed.

That's brilliant!

When I was pregnant the first time and having a tough time with my boss my Nana told me about her Mum.

She was a secretary in the colliery office. Once she married she wasn't allowed to work anymore. However, the wives who didn't have children were expected to "help out" around the colliery village. She was basically expected to "help out" by doing her job for free for two years until she got pregnant. She only had two children and had a lodger so she ended up often being the one in the row that looked after other children while other women had cleaning or laundry jobs and still helped out in the office as well.

When her husband died in a mining accident she was given 16 days notice to leave the cottage as it was only for colliery employees.

She ended up marrying the lodger 21 days after her husband died purely for financial reasons. They, in turn, took in another lodger who my Nana was fairly confident was actually her step-father's partner.

This was the 40s, but apparently the set up was exactly the same until the colliery closed in the late 50's/early 60's.