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)

I'm not aware of any jobs you would have had to give up when marrying in 1964 from the employer's perspective - that's my parents' generation now in their 80s/90s. That said it was still considered the done thing to give up work to look after children then - certainly where I came from, not least because there wasn't the childcare provision there is now and not many women would have earned enough to make it worth while. Go back a further generation, my grandparents/ great Aunts were born 1900- 1910 and women did have to give up jobs when married then, certainly teachers did anyway.

Depended on employer and personal circumstances. Definitely society frowned on married women who worked and it was seen as a failure on the husbands part that he could not afford to keep his wife. My mum married in 1956 and worked in factory canteen until she had me. Her NDN was very shocked that she kept working after marriage.

My Dhs aunt married in 1934 and her husband went to Australia for 2 years with the royal navy, 2 days after they married. She was a nurse but gave up her job after marriage because it would be shameful for his status to have her working. Spent 2 years at home waiting for him to return!

A touch of ageism again. An older woman can't possibly be believed. You may not like your aunt, or listening to the same stories over and over, but that doesn't mean she's wrong.

As others have said, it would depend on the employer, but it was very common for women to lose their job (as opposed to choose to leave) when they got married. I was born in 1955 and in the 60s I remember my mum getting very angry about this stuff.

I was told that to some degree it was considered shameful for a married woman to work, as it implied that the man didn't earn enough to support them

It used to seem strange to me that every single teacher in the Chalet School series 'had to' leave once they married ...

In fairness, @MayIDestroyYou, this seems to have been because Elinor M Brednt-Dyer envisaged a happy marriage as involving lots of jolly competitiveness as to how many babies you could crank out, preferably multiple births, while continuing to demonstrate that you were still an eternal Chalet Girl.

The bit I've never quite forgiven her for is that she appears to have forgotten that Daisy Venables was an award-winning paediatrician because at some point she has Daisy's doctor husband weighing in on something to do with their children's health as if Daisy had never before clapped eyes on a childhood ailment or injury...

I'm so glad I asked this, in my family my aunt is thought of as a bit lazy and entitled. But she's always so adamant that she gave up work and this past weekend she was going on about her job; it seems so awful now . My mother was a personal assistant to the chair and board of directors of a very large financial institution in the city, so she earned more than my dad. My grandmother was a director of a ticket agency and helped run several offices of the agency in the West End (London) both my mum and my grandmother had private educations - and my mum got 8 'o' levels - and went to secretarial college - she then did was I suppose was para legal stuff at the time. My aunt sold ads at a local newspaper - which to me would seem like quite a good job.

Yes depends on company you worked for and their company policy. No Equality legislation to back you up so like it or lump it. I had a great aunt who married in her late 20s as she didn’t want to give up her good factory job at ferranti. She only had one dc but all jobs after were cleaning type. Other jobs you could continue my grandma worked in a bakery in late 40s and my mum went to paid nursery and her auntie worked in a factory with a nursery onsite - as a result of the war. Made in Dagenham is a very watchable film if you are interested in stuff like this.

Doesn’t matter if she had a cleaner in later life or not - she’s got every right to be pissed off that her opportunities were curtailed because she was a woman.

Teachers and nurses usually had to give up. A good friend of mine got married 2 years into her SRN training. She wasn't allowed to continue, although she was given her enrolled nurse certificate. That really affected her earning potential when she did go back, after her children were grown up.

My granny, bless her, used to go on and on about her job in the civil service. She worked there for less than a year between leaving school and getting married. It was definitely the done thing in certain jobs/social circles and I am sure there are many women who still feel slightly resentful.

One of my uni lecturers told me you had to give up work because according to the law you had to 'obey' your husband.
My grandmother gave up work when she got married, but worked again later, running her own very successful guest house business.
she very staunchly advised me to work hard and to have my own money.

I'm so glad I asked this, in my family my aunt is thought of as a bit lazy and entitled

Your family sound rude and mean.

My mum had to get a signed agreement from my dad for going back to work

NHS!

I have seen, in the HR file of an older female employee, a signed slip from her husband giving her permission to return to work after marriage. The slip was dated late 1970s (she'd been at the employer a long time obvs - now she's retired). The employer was a large public sector organisation in northern England.

This stuff is all a lot more recent than you might think.

Ha! Jinx!

Your aunt sounds a bit old fashioned. My mum was born in 1943, and got married in 1964 - so same year ar your aunt. She have up work when my older sister was born, but went back part time when I started nursery and full time when I started school - she was a primary school teacher. She then worked full time until retirement.

In contrast, my MIL, who is a couple of years younger than my mum, gave up work on marriage and never went back. However I think that is more due to her fragile mental health than societal expectations.

So I think your aunt was old fashioned in the choices she made.

@toocoldforsno

I'm so glad I asked this, in my family my aunt is thought of as a bit lazy and entitled

Your family sound rude and mean.

It's kind of a joke - I don't mean it to sound rude. My mum is always saying 'but you could have stayed there'. I do wonder if my uncle was a bit of a domineering sort on the sly... and if he had supported her she could have kept working. She really wanted to be a journalist and a writer.

My mother had a permanent teaching job in ths early 5as but had to give it up and just be on temporary contract once she got married.
Council rules, not her choice.
Strangely men didn't have to give up permanent posts

My mother married in 1959. I don't think she had to give up work when she married (she was a teacher) but she became pregnant within a month of the wedding and gave up soon after.

She went back to work part-time about 20 years later, when my youngest sibling was 4

@ItWorriesMeThisKindofThing

Doesn’t matter if she had a cleaner in later life or not - she’s got every right to be pissed off that her opportunities were curtailed because she was a woman.

I totally agree with this, your family sound horrible. It’s like she didn’t prove herself to be good enough to stay at home or something, it’s really odd.

Absolutely true. My father worked for the civil service and I remember his lovely secretary had to leave to get married. I remember being confused by that as a child.

Was it the case that women were frowned upon in the 1960s for working if they got married

Yes, it absolutely was.

In the civil service and the teaching profession, once women married, they had to resign as permanent employees (and so lose job security, long service, & occupational pension rights). They could be re-employed but only as temporary staff.

It is still within living memory (mine!) when women got equal pay for the same job as men.

It's sad that you're not aware of how recently women have been accepted into the workplace on the same basis as men.

Although ....

You only have to look at "Pregnant and Screwed" or many many posts in here to see that women still aren't able to participate in the workplace on the same basis as men.

There's a sex pay gap.

Women who are pregnant are made redundant.

Women are seen as "bossy" and not leaders. And so on...

My parents got married in the late 60’s. My mum continued her degree and had a job as a university lecturer which she continued with after I was born. She retired from full time working when she was 60. Not in the U.K..

For some people / jobs yes.

My gran and grandpa married in the early 50s though and she was a teacher, head teacher then inspector and advisor on education.

@MadelaineMaxwell

She’s right. It was very much an expectation in the sixties that you gave up the majority of jobs when you got married. By the start of the seventies it was starting to change.

Absolutely. My grandmother was given her papers when she got married, whether she liked it or not.