I highly recommend you read a previous post on this site before reading this one. Even if you have read it before, please re-read it to have context for what I am talking about without me having to repeat large swaths of that piece.
The set of expectations concerning women's work and the roles women are supposed to play are rooted in a past where birth control was mostly not a thing, people tended towards large families whether they wanted them or not and often wanted them because it was shockingly common for children to die, food needed to be prepared from scratch every day because there weren't refrigerators and ready-to-eat foods at grocery stores, etc.
It is a set of expectations necessary for the survival of the species in the face of conditions that do not currently exist.
Modern women are much more likely to have access to birth control and to limit family size. At one time, most women spent their entire adult lives, often beginning in their teens, having children and raising them, in part because average life expectancy was lower than it is today.
Today, if you have two kids in your twenties, odds are high you will live at least another twenty or thirty years after they are grown adults. It no longer makes sense to expect women to play the role they played at one time, but far too many of us remain prisoners of a set of expectations that de facto frequently turns women into servants and chattel property these days.
This goes bad places for both women and men. It skews their expectations for what a heterosexual relationship is all about and makes men having a master-slave relationship to their women "sexy" in the eyes of far too many people. (Thus the popularity of the Gor series among other things, in my opinion.)
I don't believe it was like that back when people routinely had ten or twelve kids. Both men and women felt burdened by the responsibilities involved in providing for and raising the kids. I don't think women were seen as "servants" to their men in the same way they so often seem to be seen these days.
If you are a young mom still raising kids and fortunate to be married, I suggest you further your education, view hobbies and volunteer work as a means to develop your career aspirations and take your career dreams seriously, even though they are likely currently on the back burner. And I've written about that previously.
If you are an older woman whose kids are grown or maybe you never had kids but still find yourself married to a man with a serious career while your primary role in life is supporting his career, everything I have read and heard indicates that you are very likely to outlive him and after he dies you will likely be plunged into poverty. Cooperating with the expectation that you are supposed to merely serve him and his career because he makes the big bucks probably boils down to cutting your own throat.
The last time I checked statistics on such things -- and it's been a while, so these stats are likely a tad out of date but probably not so out of date as to be irrelevant -- most poor people in the US were women and their children AND most of those women were solidly middle class until one of the following three things happened:
Odds are good that hasn't changed a whole heckuva lot.
For White American women, it is perhaps even grimmer in some ways. A silver lining of the oppression and racism experienced by Blacks in the US is that Black women are much more likely to work even while the kids are little -- their men usually cannot afford to support a wife and kids on one salary -- and this fact means Black American women tend to have much more say in the family finances, thus much more experience managing the finances to some degree instead of it being something they are oblivious to which their well-heeled spouse takes care of.
I highly recommend that if you are some "privileged" (probably White) woman living a cushy life currently that you don't rest on your laurels and assume that you have it made in the shade. You probably don't.
Odds are good that after he dies, your income will drop substantially and even if there is life insurance and assets -- say you own two homes and they are even paid off -- you will not be able to afford the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. In fact, you may find yourself struggling to survive.
His high income is essential to maintain those two homes, even if they are both paid off. There are still carrying costs, such as utilities, taxes and maintenance, and if you have to sell one on short notice to keep the other, you likely will get less for it than you think you will.
While he is still alive, you would do well to do the following things:
The set of expectations concerning women's work and the roles women are supposed to play are rooted in a past where birth control was mostly not a thing, people tended towards large families whether they wanted them or not and often wanted them because it was shockingly common for children to die, food needed to be prepared from scratch every day because there weren't refrigerators and ready-to-eat foods at grocery stores, etc.
It is a set of expectations necessary for the survival of the species in the face of conditions that do not currently exist.
Modern women are much more likely to have access to birth control and to limit family size. At one time, most women spent their entire adult lives, often beginning in their teens, having children and raising them, in part because average life expectancy was lower than it is today.
Today, if you have two kids in your twenties, odds are high you will live at least another twenty or thirty years after they are grown adults. It no longer makes sense to expect women to play the role they played at one time, but far too many of us remain prisoners of a set of expectations that de facto frequently turns women into servants and chattel property these days.
This goes bad places for both women and men. It skews their expectations for what a heterosexual relationship is all about and makes men having a master-slave relationship to their women "sexy" in the eyes of far too many people. (Thus the popularity of the Gor series among other things, in my opinion.)
I don't believe it was like that back when people routinely had ten or twelve kids. Both men and women felt burdened by the responsibilities involved in providing for and raising the kids. I don't think women were seen as "servants" to their men in the same way they so often seem to be seen these days.
If you are a young mom still raising kids and fortunate to be married, I suggest you further your education, view hobbies and volunteer work as a means to develop your career aspirations and take your career dreams seriously, even though they are likely currently on the back burner. And I've written about that previously.
If you are an older woman whose kids are grown or maybe you never had kids but still find yourself married to a man with a serious career while your primary role in life is supporting his career, everything I have read and heard indicates that you are very likely to outlive him and after he dies you will likely be plunged into poverty. Cooperating with the expectation that you are supposed to merely serve him and his career because he makes the big bucks probably boils down to cutting your own throat.
The last time I checked statistics on such things -- and it's been a while, so these stats are likely a tad out of date but probably not so out of date as to be irrelevant -- most poor people in the US were women and their children AND most of those women were solidly middle class until one of the following three things happened:
- They got pregnant (presumably out of wedlock).
- They got divorced.
- Their husband died.
Odds are good that hasn't changed a whole heckuva lot.
For White American women, it is perhaps even grimmer in some ways. A silver lining of the oppression and racism experienced by Blacks in the US is that Black women are much more likely to work even while the kids are little -- their men usually cannot afford to support a wife and kids on one salary -- and this fact means Black American women tend to have much more say in the family finances, thus much more experience managing the finances to some degree instead of it being something they are oblivious to which their well-heeled spouse takes care of.
I highly recommend that if you are some "privileged" (probably White) woman living a cushy life currently that you don't rest on your laurels and assume that you have it made in the shade. You probably don't.
Odds are good that after he dies, your income will drop substantially and even if there is life insurance and assets -- say you own two homes and they are even paid off -- you will not be able to afford the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. In fact, you may find yourself struggling to survive.
His high income is essential to maintain those two homes, even if they are both paid off. There are still carrying costs, such as utilities, taxes and maintenance, and if you have to sell one on short notice to keep the other, you likely will get less for it than you think you will.
While he is still alive, you would do well to do the following things:
- Take an interest in the family finances and begin getting a financial education.
- Establish some kind of earned income, even if only very small and very part-time. (It is much easier to suddenly grow an established income if he dies, thereby freeing up some of your time, than to establish one to begin with.)
- Learn your legal rights and figure out what your finances are likely to look like in case of his death or in case of divorce.