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)

@toocoldforsno

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

So your aunt was prevented from working by either her husband or her employers and never achieved her dreams....and you all think its funny, and you treat it as a joke and call her lazy and entitled?

Do you think there is anyway you don't sound rude, and bloody horrible?

I agree. 5 minutes of googling would have told you what all the posters on here have said, but you couldn't even do that. Rather than taking her seriously and having a bit of empathy, you just assumed she was making it up. I bet she doesn't see it as a joke.

My mum continued to work and most of her female friends, from school, work and my dads friends wives worked this was from the 1950s onwards.

RSPCA had to leave if you married- I know this for sure

@Brefugee

You know you could have done your aunt the courtesy of believing her. And ask your mum when she first got her own bank account or loan without her dad or husband having to co-sign.

This stuff is very well known. Aren't you a bit embarrassed to enjoy the fruit of the hard work of previous generations of women and not know what they were up against?

Well said @Brefugee

My granny was forced to leave her nice office job when she married but my nan kept working as a factory cleaner. My mother on law was forced to leave when she was pregnant as was my mum, but my mum did go back to another job.

Its very easy to forget how recent many rights are.

Also factor in to how women's lives were then and how choices might be automatically constrained - no contraceptive pill until late 60s and no legal abortion until 1967. And don't assume that everything changed on those dates. Most drs would not initially have prescribed the pill to an unmarried woman and many wouldn't prescibe it to a married woman either because it was a married woman's job to procreate! Things change slowly. Much that young women today would completely assume as a right was not remotely possible very, very recently...

Your aunt would have been, at least, swimming against the tide somewhat and who of us as a young newly wed could hand on heart say we would have stood for change at that time (peers, society, spouse, all factors). Course there were those who did but age, experience, pressure etc etc make different people do different things.
Now she's older, maybe she has massive regrets and resents the family view that her gilded cage was a cushy number. Christ on a bike, I look at my softening jaw line and think of things I haven't achieved sometimes and recognise that doors are going to be closing not opening for me in the future, good knows what if be like in another 30 years of I felt the scorn coming from others for the person is become who didn't know who I was or actually asked me about it properly.
I think your aunt deserves a little bit more understanding than derision. She is identified and measured as the under performing kept woman in your families eyes. Maybe that was never her identity and she hated housework cos her heart was elsewhere and now realises that all her potential is buried in the past. Maybe that is enough of a reason for her to be looking back and trying to get her family who have her pegged and pidgeon holed to see her through her eyes a bit more.
It must be hard growing old when no-one really knows who you were or understand that you were making choices in different times.

My mum was a civil servant in 1970 when she got married. She was the only married woman in her office for a while. She carried on working until I was born in 1977. My dad was in the military and apparently loads of his colleagues made "jokes" that she only wanted to work for a running away fund and that he should put a stop to it as it wasn't "proper".

My mum married in the late fifties & carried on working but she was a nurse so maybe that was more acceptable. I remember a lot of my friends mums working, but a fair few didn't. Most of the older teachers in my school were unmarried (in the 70s), they were the war generation & had never married. Younger teachers were married though.

My grandma told me of her friend who was made to give up teaching when she married. She was then widowed and had to write a letter to beg permission to teach again. Sad story.

One of my grandmothers worked as a secretary all the way through the 50s and 60s. Her mother lived with them and provided childcare. My other grandmother was not able to continue working as a nurse. I’m not sure whether that was after marriage or after having children, or whether it was her employer’s decision or my grandfather’s, but I know she bitterly resented it and felt her life was very much curtailed.

My mum and dad worked together and she had to leave when they got married in 1961.

"Oh, silly women must be making this stuff up". It's a very misogynist approach to take.

Out of interest, OP - do you know when it became illegal for a man to rape his wife? Do you know when women were first allowed to take a mortgage in their own name?

@Redwinestillfine

My mil had to give up work when she got married in the mid 1970's. Apparently it was a thing.

I don't recall that and I entered the workforce in 1971, teaching, so I suppose it may depend on the job. In the 1960s I seem to remember that when a teacher, married of course, became pregnant she was expected to give up her job. In jobs like the police I don't think you would find mothers working. When you say 'had to' it may have been the social expectation because she would be taking a job off a man! When I got my Head of Department job in about 1996 my late MIL's reaction was 'Were there no married men with families up for it?'

My aunt sold ads at a local newspaper - which to me would seem like quite a good job.

I think that was what pissed my Mum off - she'd worked hard to get a "better office job" - been thwarted taking A-levels by her parents wanting her to pay board - then had to leave the "better job" and was never able to get back on track.

Paternal DGM had more luck - she has more unusal skill set and did get back in the office and seemed to look down on DMum that she hadn't managed to have as much luck as it were and only got shop work . MIL has similar from her SIL who never went back to work - her SIL made it clear over years she looks down on shop work, cleaning and factory work - and cleaning and factory work is what MIL did. So maybe some snobbery in it all about certain jobs as well a bit well I got back so why couldn't you thrown in.

Yep absolutely. My mum got fired from her job in payroll in a big multinational company when she got married.

She did get another job but it was at a much lower pay and with no career progression

@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've got an elderly relative who did very well for herself in her youth and got a job in the Foreign Office, she even had a little flat in London. Then she met her husband.

As her husband's work came with a house, she had to give up her little flat and her job. She talks about it every now and then. It was a massive achievement for her to have managed to get herself into that position - having to give it all up for love was a big deal.

She's got the most brilliant mind, even now, and I often wonder about how much talent we lost out on as a country.

My Mum got married in 1970 and I was born 9 months later. Mum returned to full time work before I was 1 and had even less time off a few years later when my sibling was born

My mum (nurse) continued to work after she married dad (doctor), but when they moved to another city so that he could take up his first consultant post, she applied for a job at the same hospital and was told that it wasn’t the “done thing” for a consultant’s wife to work and she’d be damaging his reputation. This was 1973. She not the sort to rock the boat, so she gave up, had us children and was a SAHM.

I think even if women weren’t officially barred from working, many probably did face disapproval and oppressive social conventions. And while we should thank those who rebelled against them, I don’t think we should judge those who didn’t feel up to the fight. We should just be grateful we have more choice.

If you worked for Cadbury's, you were given a bible and a carnation on your last day before you left to get married.

My mum worked in the civil service in Dublin. She had to ‘retire’ in 1970 at the grand old age of 20 when she got married. It was definitely a thing back then

@TheKeatingFive

I’m in ROI and women were effectively forced out of civil service jobs when they got married, right into the 70s/80s. So yes, I’d believe it.

My friends ex wife caused quite a stir in the 60's in their civil service office in London, when she refused to give up work after having a baby.

@RealisticSketch

Your aunt would have been, at least, swimming against the tide somewhat and who of us as a young newly wed could hand on heart say we would have stood for change at that time (peers, society, spouse, all factors). Course there were those who did but age, experience, pressure etc etc make different people do different things. Now she's older, maybe she has massive regrets and resents the family view that her gilded cage was a cushy number. Christ on a bike, I look at my softening jaw line and think of things I haven't achieved sometimes and recognise that doors are going to be closing not opening for me in the future, good knows what if be like in another 30 years of I felt the scorn coming from others for the person is become who didn't know who I was or actually asked me about it properly. I think your aunt deserves a little bit more understanding than derision. She is identified and measured as the under performing kept woman in your families eyes. Maybe that was never her identity and she hated housework cos her heart was elsewhere and now realises that all her potential is buried in the past. Maybe that is enough of a reason for her to be looking back and trying to get her family who have her pegged and pidgeon holed to see her through her eyes a bit more. It must be hard growing old when no-one really knows who you were or understand that you were making choices in different times.

Brilliant post *@RealisticSketch*

Really annoys me that Anna Bates carries on working after marriage and children. In 1924 I doubt it would ever have crossed her mind to carry on working. It wasn't done.

It’s true that some organisations didn’t employ married women. If you got married, you had to leave. I knew of this still going until the mid 70s.

But I’m sure a lot of it was down to finances and circumstances. My DM didn’t go back to work until I was 14 (two younger siblings and one older). This was in the 60s, and was not because there was plenty of money - far from it - but because she had no family anywhere near to help with childcare, and in those days there simply wasn’t much paid childcare around.

She went back to work as soon as she felt that my younger siblings were safe to get themselves home from school (quite a long walk) and could be be trusted until my elder sister and I were home

IMO it was more common to work if you had GPs or other family close by, but not everybody did by any means.