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)

Re female teachers not being allowed to wear trousers. As recently as the mid 90s it wasn't allowed at our school until a teacher turned up wearing them, was told by the male HT that it wasn't allowed and asked him what he was going to do about it! Nobody had had the nerve to stand up to him before that.

We were even told we had to wear skirts to help at the school coffee morning or summer fete

Wow, this thread is such an education. I was aware this was "a thing" of course, but not how recently. My Gran taught at a secretarial school both before and after having her children in the fifties, and later went on to become a teacher trainer for the rest of her working life, in the North East as well. She must have really been quite unusual; I've never fully appreciated that.

Mu mum worked. She worked from the age of 15 up until retirement.

My mother was born in the late 1920s and she always worked. She got married in the mid 60s

She was not married, but had children.

On the subject of Mortgages....... I was interested in buying a flat and had sufficient for a deposit. I tried to make an appointment at the Halifax Building society to apply and was told that they didn't lend to single women. That was 1977.
I left with a cheque for my entire savings.

"She really wanted to be a journalist and a writer."

I think this says it all - she had a dream, but she was prevented from pursuing that dream by societal expectations and her own individual family circumstances and the expectations of those around her at the time.

My mum (born in 46) always drilled into me to make sure that I had a good job and never to rely financially on a man, because so many women of her generation lacked financial independence and had to ask their husbands for money for housekeeping and things they needed for themselves. It kept them in a childlike state of dependency, when what they were desperate for was independence.

For a lot of years, I resented her advice, because being a working mum is so much tougher (in my personal opinion) than being a SAHM. I would have loved to have been a SAHM so I wish she'd encouraged me to find a rich husband breadwinner instead of focus on my career (I've ended up as the main breadwinner). However, I can understand that for those women denied the opportunity to have a career and financial independence it would have been very frustrating to watch others have those opportunities.

One of my grandmothers was a housemaid until she married in 1901 at the age of 23. She didn't work again, but brought up her niece and her own children.

My other grandmother never worked at all. The 1911 census says she is 'at home' and that is how it stayed. Her younger sister did work, as a welfare officer, until she married in 1945.

My mother was just 20 when she married in 1940. She had been moved from her existing office job to do war work and she carried on until 1946, when my Dad came out of the army and her job disappeared anyway. She never worked again.

My aunt on the other hand, my Dad's sister, was widowed at the age of 22 and went back to work in a knitwear factory as soon as she could. She then re-married and had another child, and went back to work again. She actually worked pretty much straight through from the 1930s until retirement in 1976.

I got married straight after graduation, so by the time I hit the job market in 1977, I was already married. That did not seem to affect anything day to day, but when I got pregnant in 1982, I was the first woman employed by that provincial law firm to take maternity leave, which caused all sorts of consternation amongst the partners. There were a couple of part-timers who had left to have children and subsequently come back, but I was the first to protect my job and my rights.

My parents married in 1960. My mum left work shortly before the wedding.

They bought a house and the mortgage could only be calculated only on dad’s earnings as it was expected that the wife would not have a wage after they married.

They had 3 children and mum returned to some part time work when the youngest was about 8. So about 13 yrs after getting married.

I'm not in the UK but women here worked after marriage - unless they didn't want to of course - but it was usual for them to leave work once pregnant.

Mum married in 1974 and carried on working until she had my brother. No question of not working, but it was almost impossible once she had children. Very little part time work. Needed to be able to drive and access to a car otherwise logistically impossible. no accommodation in the workplace at all for mothers.

My parents married in 75 and I was born in 79 (eldest). My mum was a civil servant from 15 until she retired in 2001. I remember her saying that people tried to get her to stop working and it was frowned upon, but she was determined so she stayed in work FT

My mum was a nurse and didn't give up on marriage in 1967, but they had expected her to. She won a RCN competition or something as a student nurse I. 63/4 and worked for 6 weeks in Denmark she said she was so shocked to see pregnant nurses and worried for their health, but realised it must be a thing not nurses not telling their employer as they had maternity uniforms 🤣. She realised quickly pregnancy wasn't a bad to work, and following her training married my Dad and inspired that pregnancy was not an illness or made you frail she trained to be a midwife following.
The hospital were not best pleased but they were experiencing nursing shortages and had recently lifted their marriage bar, however there expecting was nurses with older or adult children would return not young married stay.
When she was pregnant with me in 1969 she was given her letter of resignation which she refused, this time the policy was quite clear that pregnant nurses could not work for the hospital.
Fortunately for her she studied the policy and realised that the idea of a married women being employed and pregnant was so inconceivable it actually referred to unmarried staff.
When she went on maternity leave they actually paid her sick leave as they didn't know what to do with her, but by the time my brother came along 3 years later they had wised up, rewritten the policies and Mat leave was no longer paid. But more women were staying.
The only married women I knew who worked were teachers or in low paid employment. But my mum in many ways had an both a harder time but easier once she established she wasn't going anywhere she didn't have to find childcare , there where mums, grans, friends, aunties a plenty without work, to fill in and from age 5 I walked home and caught a bus to school and from 9 was a latchkey kid. If I was ill, she used to phone work and say I was ill, no sickness absence targets back then or not uses sick leave when you are not.

@alexdgr8

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.

Yes there is - Deuteronomy 22:5 “A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

My grandmother was excommunicated from the Catholic church for wearing trousers.

But my aunt goes on about how it 'wasn't acceptable' to carry on working after getting married

I presume it’s this statement that the OP is disputing as there are plenty of cases on here (my own mum included) who DID continue to work after getting married in the mid 60s, so it wasn’t ‘socially unacceptable’ as a widespread view.

It may have been that for her role in her company, this wasn’t allowed, it’s unclear from the OP though.

My mum married in 1969 straight from uni and carried on working (she worked as a metallurgist in a steel plant). Stopped when she got pregnant 2 years later.

Restarted when I was about 7 or 8 but as a teacher so about 10 years out of the job market. My one aunt (teacher) stopped when she got pregnant and the other stopped when she got married and was a secretary who married the boss. Both late 70s.

My dm was expected to leave work when i was born in the early 70s. I knew almost no one who had a working mum in those years

This was the case with my grandmother, a nurse, in the 40s - she had to give up nursing when she got married

My Grandmother was a teacher and had to resign when she got married in 1930 - they were desperate for her to go back in 1939 fir the war effort - but terminated her employment in 1946 when jobs were needed for returning service men
In the 1950s the bar was removed if she was willing to teach in a ‘special’ school
By the 60s when she retired she had worked her way back to mainstream - elevated to SMT with a special interest in SEN and apparently was well loved as a bit of an innovator (I ended up at the same school 10 years later)

It was common in both public and private sectors at that time for women to be sacked on marriage, or if not immediately on marriage then on pregnancy. In the 60s the teacher shortage was so acute that young married women could teach but if they were pregnant had to leave before it showed as it was considered "not nice" for the children to witness a pregnant woman.

The law may have changed in the 70s but attitudes didn't and discrimination was widespread and hard to prove. This is on the downward slide again - pregnancy is still one of the commonest reasons for women losing their jobs. Professional women are more protected but but its still an issue that simply having given birth affects career prospects.

When I married in the late 80s DH was routinely asked (in front of me) if I worked. I was the main earner. It was common then for men to spout "my wife doesn't need to work" and women were certainly assumed to be working as their secondary interest, retaining full responsibility for the family even if they were brain surgeons.

My mother HAD to give up work as a BOAC air hostess when she got married. Lots lied about it but she was pregnant within a month and stopped. It was very much the thing back then.

It was definitely the norm to give up work if you married.

It's unimaginable now but I believe women were managed out of their jobs by employers when they married.

Shocking today. Perfectly normal in the 60s/70s.

I’m not convinced by the civil service. My mum joined in the late 60’s, got married in 1973 and got pregnant with me in the late 70’s. Never left and never got asked to leave. Only left when she retired

Yes. My Mum had to give up her job in the civil service when she got married because they didn't employ married women though that was in the early 50s.

It was very much the case that women couldn't carry in working in many jobs - it just depends on what area of work. So in the professions, banking, nursing women were probably discouraged from working but if you worked in a shop, school, market stall or cleaning maybe not.