I recently ran across an article in the Forbes magazine archives which was titled “Don’t Marry Career Women” (with a subheading of “How do women, careers and marriage mix? Not well, say social scientists”). It was written by Michael Noer and dated August 23, 2006.
Unlike a lot of the research I run across (which these days often pushes a particular ideology or other agenda), this article was refreshingly straight-forward and logical (for example, it cautioned against equating correlation with causality, which is a common error made when analyzing statistics but which is very often done in research pushing an agenda).
The author points out that:
“… recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat and less likely to have children. And if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.”
He continues by recounting several related findings from other research studies:
- Women - even those with a “feminist” outlook - are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner (Social Forces)
- If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family)
- They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces)
- You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family)
- You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology)
- Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research)
The article then goes on to hypothesize as to why this might be the case.
Since Forbes is a business-oriented publication, they not surprisingly looked at the classical economic theory regarding labor specialization (where men traditionally tended to do “market” or paid work outside the home, and women tended to do “non-market” or household work, including raising the children).
“…
career women … get more opportunity to stray and therefore have a greater chance of meeting men who are more desirable
…”
They also pointed out that it’s frequently true that career women (who often work long hours with and around other men) get more opportunity to stray and therefore have a greater chance of meeting men who are more desirable than the one to whom they’re currently married.
I’d like to add one more observation based on my own experiences over the years. From all I’ve seen, career women have different expectations than do stay-at-home wives. A lot of them have bought into the feminist rhetoric about “having it all” (that being one reason why they aren’t a stay-at-home wife) and “all” to them means more than just a hubby and a job. It means having an exciting hubby and an exciting job.
But here’s the catch …
And since most hubbies and most jobs are not exciting (especially having the same one and doing the same things year after year), the career women I’ve known were more likely to feel disappointed by such an outcome. After all, happiness is a relative concept (representing the difference between one’s perception of reality and one’s expectations), so having “higher expectations” usually results in experiencing “lower happiness”.
What’s the solution for women
with an unexciting hubby and
an unexciting job?
One commonly tried remedy is for the woman to have an affair with some dashing fellow whom she’s met at work.
After all, most women will do more to counteract boredom than for almost any other reason (with the possible exception of “for money” if the amount of money involved is large enough), including cheating on their spouse.
I’ve learned that the more bored a woman looks, the better will be my chances of picking her up. And “career women” can be an especially easy target market in that regard.
Stay tuned,
-Mack Doppler
