If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life...

...better make a jobless woman your wife.

Today's entry in what I can only assume is a contest to write the article that pisses me off the most, is this Forbes piece about why guys shouldn't marry career women. The reason?

While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.
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If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).

I'm no social scientist here, but let me pose a little theory. Perhaps could all of the above things be true, but be the result of marital and societal expectations continuing to put the burden for childrearing and domestic chores squarely on the shoulders of wives, even if they work outside the home? And could any negativity associated with a wife earning more than her husband be related primarily to HIS insecurity and resentment and her not wanting to deal with it? Hell, if someone insisted that I had to quit my job to raise our kids, or that cleaning the house was still my responsibility even if we both worked full time jobs, I'd be pretty angry about it. I'm sure that anger would affect my marriage. But if I had a husband who, crazy guy that he is, actually wanted to be more equitable about it, and share childrearing responsibilities and suggest that I hire a maid, and who recognized that it doesn't really matter who's making more money if you're in a true partnership, then I'm pretty sure I could be happy with that and he could too.

The article also goes on to suggest that if you let your wife work outside the home, she's more likely to meet someone she likes more than you and cheat on you with them. Gee, because husbands haven't been doing that to their stay at home wives for, like, FOREVER. To me this is the most insulting assertion, that god forbid your wife have her own life wherein she might meet someone who's not a chauvinistic douchebag threatened by her willingness and ability to hold down a real job.

Howsabout this for a reality check? Plenty of marriages between career husbands and stay at home moms end in divorce, too. And alimony ain't what it used to be. Also, husbands die or become disabled, or lose their jobs, and then suddenly one income families are screwed. Women need to be prepared to provide for themselves and their children in the event they have to, and having a successful or even viable career and marketable skills are essential. Women who take the stay at home role take a big risk that there will never come a time when they will need to be able to assume the role of primary breadwinner. It's not all feminazi bluster to suggest to women that they should work outside the home, and it's not denigrating the contributions of stay at home moms to their families and their children--some of us actually believe it's better for women to have a safety net in themselves that they can rely on when everything else goes to hell. Encouraging women to leave it all up to their husbands can be woefully short-sighted.

It amazes me that in the very same year when we are seeing such unprecedented gains for women in the political and business arenas, an article like this could be published in a major magazine that suggests the dark ages are better for us all, thankyouverymuch. Betty Friedan just turned over in her grave, bless her soul.

Found at Shakespeare's Sister.