Today’s workplaces are a far cry from the misogynist and smoked-filled offices of the notorious ad agency where Donald Draper resides in the television series Mad Men.
However, some of the attitudes harboured by the slick-haired male professionals of the 1960s still exist.
New research conducted by Western Washington University suggests women who are the chief breadwinners in their marriage are more likely to get divorced. Such salary discrepancies are thought to wound male pride, which leads to tension in the relationship.
The study into the marriages and incomes of 2,500 women found those that consistently made more money than their husband were 38% more likely to divorce. In addition, researchers from Cornell University found that men earned less than their wives were more likely to have affairs.
Perhaps there are some men out there that believe their wives should stay at home and bake the bread rather than win it.
I suspect the real reason for divorce is that high earning women still bear the brunt of responsibility for tasks around the house. If lower earning men have time for affairs, they have time to be more supportive with household chores, but research consistently shows this is not the case.
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, in my view the way to a working woman’s heart is through taking a fairer share of household and other “life maintenance” tasks.
I was the only/main breadwinner for nearly 10 years when we first moved to North Devon and my husband was supply teaching. The system worked very differently in Devon to that which had operated where we lived in London. Although we were told that there was plenty of work for supply teachers in North Devon, it turned out that you had to be known by the school in order to get the call! Only when the known supply teachers were busy, did the school then look at the availability of anyone else. Gradually he got known, but the work was not as plentiful as we had been led to believe.
Although he always said that it didn’t matter to him that I was the breadwinner, looking back, I think he was close to clinical depression. We had a lot of work to do in the house we had just bought, but could not afford to do that work on only one wage. Hence he would be at home (with two small children when they were not at school/playschool) and not able to do the required decorating etc, due to lack of funds. There are only so many times you can hoover and dust, and occasionally, if he was really feeling down, even that would not be done. However, he never implied that it should be me doing the housework instead.
He was very different during the odd times when he would get a week or even a term’s work at a school. It obviously gave him back his sense of pride and independence.
We have come through those times and he and I have now both been working permanently and full time for over nine years, but it is only within the last few years that he has admitted how he felt during the bad years – both personally and physically. Perhaps that is male pride as well!
Maybe we have been lucky, but, having just celebrated our 30th Wedding anniversary this week, it would appear that we have gone against the trend!