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)

My grandmother had to give up work (secretary) when she got married in 1930.
My mother had to leave the army as an officer when she got married in 1964.
Pretty horrific!

Late 70s it was common to be asked during a job interview whether you were going steady. At one interview, I was asked whether I was "winching". Said no, got the job. Another job application I got a reply saying I wouldn't be considered as women got married and pregnant.

During the summer holidays, jobs were relatively easy to come by, but the married women I worked beside were taxed on every pound as if it were their husbands' income. Married women were seen as working for pin money.

A few years later, at Mothers and Toddlers group, the older women made sure we knew that you could get your husband's name removed from the front of your child benefit book.

Oh yes, the married woman's income tax where the wife's money was an extension of the DHs.

I think it may have been a thing in some work places but those women could have got a job elsewhere.

My parents got married in 1965 when my mum was 18 so she would have never had a career of thst rule had been true!

But she worked as a secretary before training to be a teacher. Worked the whole time except for a few years when we were small.

My Mil is 10 years older than my parents and worked her whole life as a nurse.

I'm sure it was harder to work in some professions and I'm not denying the sexism. But your aunt would have also known a lot of women who were still working after they got married at the time, so I think she is rewriting history.

My mother had to leave her job on marriage (1966) which was annoying as she was better paid than my father. She got another part time job instead that was closer to home. The only mothers who worked when I was at school were doctors (& 1 journalist & 1 TV presenter) or those who were divorced.

My DM had to leave the Wrens when she got married in 1954.

My mother (married in 1970) worked throughout her life as did both my grandmas and step grandma so no the experience in my family.

I'm also an army brat, I believe it wasn't until the 90's That serving female soldiers no longer had to ask their CO for permission to marry

gosh @Graphista I'd completely forgotten that! i refused for ages and in the end just wrote a form letter advising them I'd be getting married and keeping my own name.

My dm got married and had me in 1962. She was a Secretary and never stopped working and went on to be an import clerk

Agree with the PP ; this depended on class.No stay at home mum's in my family ,going way back . (Glasgow and Ayrshire).

My grandmother was a single mother so couldnt not work, 1965, but I guess she'd already committed the biggest controversy that no one would challenge her on working. My other grandmother also didn't work, which she hated, and went back to work as soon as "acceptable" when her youngest was in school, 1960s, my grandad was well paid though.

Aunt is right, my mum got married in 1962 and had to give up her job at a stockbrokers, she did some part time factory work occasionally.

In my family it was seen as a disgrace that my grandmother had to work, her husband died before she was 40 so she 'didn't get a proper widows pension, only 10 shillings a week'

Long after it became illegal some companies made life hard for married women and into the 80s one national company did not employ mothers, it was illegal but the made "An offer you cannot refuse" to not come back after maternity leave.

In the 1980s one bank (Barclays I think) ran adverts in women's magazines saying something along the lines of, "here this won't hold you back" and a picture of a wedding ring.

I can't find the one with a ring, but have a look at this, you actually get paid money if you get married, as long as you have worked for 5 years.

c8.alamy.com/comp/2D9RAFW/job-advert-for-working-in-the-midland-bank-inside-an-evening-standard-souvenir-newspaper-replica-for-the-apollo-11-moon-landings-on-21st-july-1969-2D9RAFW.jpg

It was definitely expected for many women it was almost an insulting future DH when a woman needed the work to help support the family.
I feel sorry for your aunt too almost 50 year's on and being disbelieved.

@sashh Love how the bankhas decided 'GIRLS' include 31 year olds!
On the whole, tho, it's a pleasure to see a company so keen to employ people in decent entry-level jobs. Wouldn't happen now.

@Graphista l know what late 70’s means. But feel free to pop along and clarify what early 70’s means. I’m not quite clear on that I appreciate that the civil service is a large organisation but the disparities can’t have been that big

My dad insisted my mum gave up work when they got married.
‘No wife of mine is going out to work,’ etc etc

He soon changed his tune when the kids got older and the bills went up

I'm sure it was harder to work in some professions and I'm not denying the sexism. But your aunt would have also known a lot of women who were still working after they got married at the time, so I think she is rewriting history.

Yes I agree with this. I was a teenager in the 60’s and don’t recognise the world some people are portraying on this thread. It sounds more like the 1930s. The economy would have collapsed without married women working. It would have been impossible to run an education system. For more people married in those days and they married young. Yet the workforce did not consist of men and teenage girls.

Women did give up work when they had young children but tended to go back to work when there children were older. My mother and nearly all my friends’ mothers worked when I was at secondary school; they were all married (or had been and were now divorced). I don’t think any of our dads felt any shame or embarrassment about this either.

My MIL was a very skilled and clever woman who worked as a senior scientist. She didn't give up work when she got married, but after having a baby she had to go back to work, full time from the baby being 6 weeks old if she wanted to keep her job. Part time/flexible - not a chance.
Read Helen Lewis' book - Difficult Women if you want a summary of how recently many of the'rights' women have actually came about. My teen DD read it and was quite shocked.

@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)

Yes this is true. Many women were made to resign and then reapply several months later in their married names but had to go through the whole application process again and were often rejected. Many companies had to pay compensation recently to women who lost pension contributions because they were forced to resign and had proof.

Even when I had my kids in early 1990 nurseries were still few and far between, professional women who wanted to work had nannies! There weren’t before/after school clubs in our areas- a very new concept. My generation of mothers were raised at a time when less than 7% of women went on to university and went into “professional” jobs

My DC were also early 90s, nurseries were certainly the exception rather than the rule. A few work place creches, mostly public sector but otherwise you stumped up for a nanny or used childminders. Social expectations were entirely on the mother - some of that hasn't changed much.

The girls I went to school with were far more likely to be pulled out of school for work than their brothers. Sometimes because the family needed another income but always because the girl's education was deemed less important than her brothers' as girls "got married'. So the social expectation had much wider impact on women's prospects in the first place.

I had an older workmate who was the first woman in our the company (large pharma) to return to work after she had children. She said she was put in a meeting room with nothing to do and told if she couldn't cope with being away from her baby that was fine, she didn't have to come in the next day. That was in the mid 80s. When I started in the early 2000 there were next to no female managers because there were senior managers who thought women who worked PT shouldn't be promoted (despite several of these men working PT themselves for non-childcare related reasons).

It's worth looking at the history of maternity legislation (and realise how much we have to thank the EU for, we were the last country in Europe to have universal maternity leave) here.

I can't find the one with a ring, but have a look at this, you actually get paid money if you get married, as long as you have worked for 5 years.

Sound like a nice perk. Nothing like that in the public sector. As they had the pay scale up to age 31, I guess they expected married women to stay with them.

Agree when my mum was expecting my brother in 1967 it was expected she would give up work and she didn't work again until the 80s and then it was piecemeal work - ie very low paid work and she had a good skilled job before

My grandmother was a single mother so couldnt not work, 1965

My grandmother was a single mother in the 30s and had to work. Working class women used a network of informal child minders, family (if they had any), shift work and in some cases residential glorified boarding for children.

Its worth noting that women were forced out of good jobs with prospects rather than choosing to be SAHMs. Combine that with the problems organising childcare the social pressures on women and men to have the woman at home and its easy to underestimate the struggles women faced. Women in low income families continued to work in shifts or using networks of informal care which my DGM would have recognised.