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 mum worked as a nurse before & after marriage but had to leave when she took maternity leave in 1965.

She stayed at home till I & my brother were both at school, so off for 7 years in total, then went back part-time

Your poor aunt. I wonder if she knows her family consider her “lazy and entitled”.

My mum gave up work (librarian) when she married in 1976. I don’t think she had to, but she followed the example of her mum who had to stop working as a teacher when she married in the very late 1930s.

Depended on the job, the relationship and to an extent on social class.

My MIL - desperate to be middle class. Gave up her clerical job on marriage. Not entirely clear that she had to. Speaks about her experience of the workplace as if it was lifelong and she is an expert. However realistically, there wouldn't have been any childcare options.

My DM - nurse. Went back to work after 6 weeks mat leave as they needed the money. Worked nights for years so she and my Dad could sort the childcare between them. Only one (!) nursery existed at the time, few hours a day only, wrap around childcare had never been thought of - mums are at home aren't they?!

So I went to a random series of art students sidelining as childminders, nextdoors teens as baby sitters, my Dad was an equal parent and my mum would wake up at 1pm after a night shift to look after me.

The absence of any other childcare was a massive deal and reinforced the marriage bar for years.

Must've changed in the late 60's. My mum married late sixties, first child 1970 and she always worked. My mum and dad worked a mix of days/nights and the rest of the time we went to a childminder as my gran worked too.
I think also maybe depended on social class? My parents both had to work to pay their mortgage so it wasn't a case of 1 wage being enough for all households as people so often say these days.

The Sex Discrimination Act came in in 1975, making discrimination on the grounds of marriage illegal. Prior to that it would depend on individual company policy.

My Mil had to give up work in the late 60s but she worked in a factory so I wonder whether there was some sort of Union protection of male jobs going on.

Agree with a pp though, working class women always worked. I was born in 1972 and don't remember any expectation of women becoming sahm when I was a child. The majority of my female relatives worked.

The thing about your Aunt though, is that when all this changed in the 70's, she chose to stay unemployed / be a house wife.

My Mum was born in 1946. She had to leave work in 1968 when she married. However, she went back to work when the climate was more accepting, and me and sibling were about 10. She would have been about 38 at the time, and she worked from 38 until retirement age. By which time she had worked her way up to a fairly senior role at the local Council.

So, whilst your Aunt is right when she says she was forced to stop working, she could have easily started working in the 70's or 80's and carried on until retirement. So, she's not really being truthful !!

It was true in teaching, which is why teachers are generally referred to as Sir and Miss, rather than Sir and Madam.

Not in the 1960s it wasn’t. Certainly many of our teachers were married. Women tended to give up work when they had children but some of our older teachers had school age children.

More generally in those days, many women may have seemed to leave work on marriage when they in fact left to have a baby. Already being pregnant on marriage was very common.

This is why it was more common to have SAHM’s. My mum went back to work when we were young
as we were struggling financially (my dad drank a lot and they both chain smoked). Mil never worked again and til struggled on as breadwinner.

My parents were both teachers and married 1959. My mum carried on working after marriage but gave up when she had me and my brother , returning to work when we were both at school .

My memories of friends parents when I was at school in 70's were of a few friends with stay at home mums, but a higher percentage had mums who worked, mainly part time .

Well, it obviously depends on the kind of job.
My mother (born 1911, and now obviously deceased), gave up work for 6 weeks when I was born (1950s), and continued to work throughout my childhood, until she retired at age 65. Yes, this was past the then state pension age of 60 for women, but she changed her job age 57, and by working to 65, earned a small occupation pension.
My MIL (same age), was expected to give up her job, but also carried on, stopping for only a couple of years until DH was at school.

My headmaster called social services on my Mum twice in the 1979s due to the ‘neglect’ I suffered because she worked. Thing is my Grandparents did all my childcare including picking me up from school at lunchtime to feed me (as the school food was awful). The lovely social worker used to have a cuppa with my Nan and slag the Head off

My DM was working as a teacher when she married in 1963. She carried on teaching and supported my DF through teacher training college starting around 1970, even though she’d already had my DSis by then.

I don’t think I’d ever realised quite how out there that was - I’ve always thought of them as being quite conservative!

In the 1940s my grandmother refused to marry until she was into her 40s, because it would have meant giving up her job. She was a senior nurse & hospital matron.

My mum (full time working at the time, married to my dad) was told she could not be included on the mortgage in the mid 1970s. They eventually found a lender who would do this, but it was v unusual. She was also able to have a credit card - just on principle of sex discrimination - until early 1980s.

It was very real and very recent.

That should say 'not able' on the credit card!

I think your Aunt is like my MIL - yes she had to give up, there was pressure from her DH/work/social circle. No, nobody else was going to do her childcare.

However when the opportunity came to go back to work... she didn't take it, did she?

To hear my MIL talk you would think she had been managing director of company she met FIL at, not a secretary for a couple of years. And her version is that he practically financially abused her for the rest of the marriage.
Oddly his was that when the kids were grown, she wanted him to pay for private schools, bigger holidays but always went quiet when he suggested she went back to work or that everything was depending on him.

My parents married in 65 but she didn’t have to leave work until I was born a few years later. They received money from their employer as a wedding gift and money for having me! This was one of the largest employers in the town at the time.

My Grandmother had to relinquish her teaching job once she married.

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 Nan married in the late 1940s and carried on working as a matron but it was very, very unusual among her peers. She even learnt to drive which was unusual too.

My MIL worked for a department store, she said they didn't have a uniform that fitted pregnant women and she had to leave the shop floor once her pregnancy showed, and then left once she had DH

Regarding the civil service, my friend carried on working for the Inland revenue after she married in 1964. She didn’t have her first child till 1970 and, more unusually, was able to continue in her career as her mother provided childcare.

An elderly friend of mine says it was considered a shame on the husband if his wife "had to go out to work".

my auntie worked for a solicitor and had to give it up when she got married approx 1968 - my mum was a nurse and continued when she married my dad in 1972

[quote Rosehip10]@cabingirl It was more than "encouraged" in the civil service it was an rigidly applied policy.[/quote]
However, after 1946 the marriage bar was repealed for the home civil service so technically you could stay on after marriage.

When I say 'encouraged' I mean that the climate made it very difficult to do so and you would not have been very popular or had an easy time at work if you'd insisted on staying.

My parents got married in the mid 60s and my Mum said they did discuss whether she should stay on or go and take the marriage gratuity. In the end they decided taking the money and getting a different job worked for them. And then as soon as she was allowed she reapplied and got her civil service job back.