Just read this NY Times guest essay (gift link). I think it is interesting and also kind of funny because my guess is that 75% of the posters on this thread (including posters who strongly disagree with each other ) could point to a particular paragraph in the essay as proof that the author agrees with their particular perspective on marriage, single parenting, and gender relations. So there is something for everyone!
Jan. 31, 2024
These two paragraphs stood out to me as being more connected than the author necessarily pointed to.
âA 2006 paper from the economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers showed that when divorce laws were liberalized in the 1960s, â70s and â80s and spouses from those midcentury marriages could leave their unions without their partnerâs permission, there was less âextreme marital distress.â âExamining state panel data on suicide, domestic violence and murder,â they concluded, âwe find a striking decline in female suicide and domestic violence rates arising from the advent of unilateral divorce.ââ
ââMarriage, a Historyâ by Stephanie Coontz is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the long arc of disagreements about marriage in the United States. I reread parts of it last weekend, and this stuck out: âAnyone who thinks that male-female hostility was invented in the 1970s never spent time in a beauty parlor in the 1950s. When I was a teenager hanging out while my mother had her hair done, I got to listen in as âhappily marriedâ women routinely expressed contempt toward their husbands and toward men in general. And I knew from my father and his male friends that hostility toward women ran rampant in all-male settings.â What changed over time, Coontz wrote, was that the hostility began to be aired in mixed company.â
I think that men and women today are more confident in staying single, of the ability to pay their own bills and not accept unhappiness.
I think there were generations that felt that marriage was the only way out of their parentâs house. And that staying unhappily married or staying in a marriage that wasnât great was how it was.
People arenât settling for a situation that they might have 50 years ago. And if that means they have fewer children, then thatâs a consequence.
I think thatâs true here in the USA. And around the world.
I just wanted to say that all of my comments are being directed towards those men and women who are âInvoluntarily Singleâ. If a man or woman is truly happy being without a significant other or having children, I am very happy for those people. There are many people in relationships right now who are not happy so having another person is no guarantee of happiness. But there are many men and women out there who are unhappy with their âsingle statusâ.
For men, what I have witnessed 1st hand is that improving our financial and physical well being still correlates with attracting women most (particularly because men become more confident as they achieve and reach goals and most women like that), more so than any political position, even in 2024. You may just attract more of the woman who agree with you.
For women, looking good to the particular man/men you are trying to attract does matter, but the number 1 thing that the men I am around care about after that initial physical attraction is âPeaceâ. I donât know of any man who wants to come home to an argumentative woman over and over. It is okay for men and women to disagree over things. My wife and I are supremely different people, but I have found that those differences make us stronger because we listen to one another and we trust each otherâs counsel while never becoming disrespectful in our âtoneâ to one another.
Reading this thread, I realize just how much nuance and togetherness my parents had in their marriage. And the occasional argument. 
My dad, an old-school kind of guy, taught me how to grocery shop because my mom was the one to make meals at home for a large-ish family.
Back in the day (Gen X kid of Greatest Generation parents - not the most common thing), people didnât discuss religion, sex or politics in great detail if they wanted to have social interactions that were more cohesive (school functions, sports functions, etc.).
Chump Lady is a blog/website that deals with cheating spouses. In the fantastic comments section the respondents are largely female, but there is a strong and illuminating representation of males there as well. I found the site when my child was dealing with a toxic situation, and have learned a lot about what I couldnât articulate in bad relationships (in work/school/friendships/etc.) previously.
Raising decent human beings of both sexes hasnât changed over time. (Getting women the ability to work and men to be more a part of the family is an upgrade, for sure.) A lot of what is being discussed here is reflective, IMHO, of general character defects (mysogynistic ways or extreme gold-digging).
When I look at my kid and see the level of inflexibility of thought out there on both extremes of the political circle, I think, âcui bono?â - who benefits? Why are we having these arguments now with such vitriol? What is happening economically around the world? At home? Are these arguments happening in other parts of the world? Why or why not?
@ChangeTheGame - you and I are different in many ways, but you are discussing something very real that has been an underlying discussion for working women since the first wave of '60s feminism.
Some females want the ability to work outside the home, and yet also want a traditional family situation with a spouse and kids. There is an involuntarily single contingent that feels like they were sold a bill of goods that wasnât, in the end, true for their life. And they do mourn the loss of a good marriage and kids. The thing is, when these people pass on, their voices are not heard. The only voices you hear are those voices that are around and alive to tell their stories.
Arguably a major reason why US universities (especially elite colleges) became so obsessed with sports was to create a âtarget-rich environmentâ 
5 years ago, I decided to retire early.
Day 1: I went to Costco and decided retirement is awesome.
Day 2: Trader Joes. Awesomeness again.
Day 3: Watched 2015 Dodge Ball World Championship on YouTube
A few weeks later, a company called and asked if Id be interested in working for them. ACCEPTED.
I appreciate this post. I understand the feelings that are being expressed. I too empathize with the âInvoluntarily Singleâ.
I, on the other hand, was making comments focused on supporting individual choice. (Not that ChangeTheGame wasnâtâŠjust a different perspective/emphasis, I believe.)
The age group that was originally specified (18-29 yr olds) led me to focus more on the procreation aspect of the ideological gender divide. I firmly believe that a woman should not have children out of a sense of duty or a sense of fearâŠthough that darn biological clock is very real.
Anyway, if a woman wants children thatâs great! If a woman doesnât want children, I support that choice.
I was a SAHM and love my family with my whole being. ButâŠyes, there is a âbutââŠit takes sacrifice.
I acknowledge that worthwhile things require compromise. But many donât acknowledge the sacrifice, it requires. I believe compromise and sacrifice are not the same thing. And Iâll go a step further. In my opinion, women have historically been put into this position of sacrifice.
Now I believe this gender divide is growing because the younger generation has seen and experienced (not just through social media, but in their actual lives) what we, their elders have put them directly and indirectly throughâŠthe good and the bad (infIdelity, abuse, divorce, etc). Now they are making their own choices. There will be good and bad repercussions.
So what I guess Iâm trying to convey is that we can lament over the new landscape of finding a partner, but I for oneâŠa mom of a son and daughter in their 20sâŠam very glad women are no longer socially and economically completely dependent on men.
You have hit the nail on the head.
I, too, am a SAHM. It is a sacrifice made palatable by the fact that my spouse makes a very generous salary so being on one-income wasnât as restrictive as it can beâŠand my spouse has always looked at his money = my money, a pretty uncommon viewpoint imo. The fact he looks his income as equally my money is an explicit acknowledgement of the cost of my sacrifice.
While we are a one-income family, weâve never had a one person retirement/savings plan. Before we had enough money to fund both his 401(k) and IRAs for both of us - we funded his 401(k) and my IRA. As our resources grew, we figured out how to create more parity between our individual retirement assets and savings.
While we depend upon one another in our relationship in many ways, it took conscious effort, much discussion/respect and mutual agreement to figure out how to make tangible me not being completely dependent upon him financially as a SAHM.
I am trying to imagine most, many, a plurality(?) of traditional/conservative people who would be open to funding their future spouseâs individual retirement and savings as a greater and/or equal priority to their ownâŠon one income. Not just saving âas a familyâ but acknowledging the financial, professional, emotional and social sacrifice of being a SAHM via providing equal economic resources to be used/saved/spent by stay at home spouse unilaterally.
That doesnât seem to be the current model. Makes it clear why so many women find the traditional model unappealing - financial and social dependence with little autonomyâŠand almost no safety net if things go wrong.
Most young people I know who marry have a prenup these days, at least if they are professionals
Why the emphasis on âunilateralâ? I would have assumed sharing the same bank account is more common amongst âtraditional/conservative peopleâ (whatâs mine is yours) and that seems to me to be more equal than keeping separate accounts with the stay at home spouse dependent on funding being provided by the working spouse.
And it would make no sense to me to do things that were disadvantageous from a tax perspective (e.g. funding the SAH spouseâs savings in a taxable account rather than a tax-advantanged 401K or Roth 401K retirement account if the latter is only available to the working spouse).
I believe every adult needs to have resources that are just theirs. That gives them security, options and a credit score that they have control over. If a spouse makes the sacrifice to be a SAHparent - that doesnât remove the need for their own resources, it actually makes it more imperative.
My grandma called it âmad moneyâ when women are dating (money that you had so if you wanted to leave a situation, you could call a taxi and pay for it without having to rely on someone else to get you home). Individual accounts/savings is, in my view, the grown up equivalent of âmad moneyâ so that you arenât economically trapped in a situation with no options if things go sideways.
We share a joint checking/savings account where paychecks are deposited and both spouses have access to. We have one joint credit card account. We also each have our own accounts (checking/savings, IRAs and taxable). Spouse has a 401(k) and an HSA as well. Most of our credit cards are held in our individual names - not joint.
As a couple, we decided how much money goes into individual accounts from the joint accounts at the beginning of each year as part of our budget process (full transparency). Once the money is âindividual accountâ money - that can be used as that individual deems appropriate without any discussion or debate.
I donât have to have to get agreement from anyone about how I spend or save the money in my individual accounts. I can go out with friends for lunch, save up to buy a splurge outfit/experience or even do a great impression of Scrooge McDuck and save all it with a future plan of swimming in gold coins.
To be clear, spouse also has individual accounts that he controls completely. I have no say over what he does with that money. As I said at the beginning, I think every adult needs to have some resources that are just theirs.
It can be very easy to fall into a situation where in a one-income family - all the savings is going into the income-earnerâs individual retirement account and a joint checking/savings account.
If anything goes wrong in the relationship (internally or externally) - that can leave the non income earner in a precarious position.
If there are any control issues or domestic violence issues - it can be risky to save/remove any money from joint accounts because there is no privacy.
If your spouse dies and you donât have your own credit cards and no income - it can be difficult to get credit while you are already dealing with a hard situation.
I am not exactly sure what you mean by disadvantageous from a tax perspective. Since we do fully fund spouseâs 401(k) and take advantage of that tax defermentâŠwhy wouldnât we then also save money in a taxable account (that is in my name)? That way, both of us have individual savings earmarked towards retirement (in addition to our IRAs). Itâs pretty simple to choose investments in taxable accounts that are tax efficient.
P.S. We opened savings accounts for our children when they were young and gave them allowance for much the same reason. They, too, needed to have resources that were solely their own. To learn how to use money, to learn how to save money and to be able to have some measure of autonomy in decision making.
Given the trends in the OPâs article, I wonder if liberal-leaning young women will be dating somewhat older men than before to widen the pool of similar-minded potential matches.
My mother always wanted her daughters to be able to stand on their own two feet financially, which is why she strongly urged them to get skills that would be employable at a living wage (and a single-parent family-sustaining wageâŠthough not necessarily the âupper middle classâ sustaining wage of CC). Having financial means of oneâs own meant that one would not need to be dependent on a spouse if things went south (i.e. physically, emotionally, or financially abusive). Additionally, it meant that her daughters would never âhaveâ to get married in order to have financial security. Having financial accounts in their own names is fully a part of that, too.
I think itâs entirely reasonable to expect oneâs dating partner (if looking for a future spouse) to be financially self-sustaining. The historian Stephanie Coontz was quoted in the article shared by @Alqbamine32 as saying this about why some individuals end up having a kid before being married with financially stable jobs:
everything from a lack of marriageable men who earn decent wages in some communities, high incarceration rates, the decline of union power and a general feeling that thereâs little point to waiting to have a child because thereâs little hope for ever really improving oneâs lot.
I think that the gender divide between the 18-29 year olds is that many men in that age range are finding greater difficulty in finding financially sufficient employment (by the standards of yesteryear) as many of the fields where they used to be able to have good-paying jobs have had their wages depressed (or shipped overseas). So they bemoan their economic fate, which often relates to their dating fate. If they were raised in households where they were told to âBe a manâ or âman upâ or where males doing something âfeminineâ was derided, then being more open to roles like being a SAHD/H is a hard sell for them, as it goes against a lot of their upbringing. At the same time, women who are financially self-sufficient and are open to having their spouse be the SAHD/H would likely expect their spouse to do the caretaking responsibilities that SAHM/W have usually done (which are significant). But if their spouse is not, then the women think that they would be better off single.
So although much of the discourse in this thread has been about womenâs rights over their bodies (which I believe most 18-29 year olds of both sexes agree on), I donât think thatâs where the progressive/conservative issue is arising from. I think itâs between men who feel as though theyâve been left behind who are attaching themselves to a party that is pandering to them, because they feel better if theyâre better than âsomebodyâ else (hence all the subhuman terminology of that party).
My point was simply that if you can put up to $23K in working spouseâs 401K, but can only afford to save $30K total, does that mean only $15K goes to the 401K and the remaining $15K ends up in SAH spouseâs taxable account?
Anyway this is way off-topic. Itâs interesting how differently people can think about finances though.
Agree. That would probably be a bad move since even if you got a divorce, the other spouse could get a QDRO for that 401k balance.
Thankfully, no one was recommending or doing that.
To answer the $30k total to be saved question (I know we are far afield, just completing the thought) - this would probably be my choice -
Some amount of that money would go into emergency/cash savings. Prioritizing putting everything into tax advantaged accounts wouldnât be my first choice ever - flexibility is needed if things come up. Probably something like $3-5k would go into emergency funds easily accessible. Half to one spouse, half to the other.
401(k) - contribute up to the max match, if one is available, as long as expense ratios on funds offered are under 0.5%. I wouldnât contribute the full $23k (or $30k if age 50 or older), as there are other tax advantaged choice available.
Fully Fund SAHM Spouse IRAs $7k ($8k if over 50) deductible probably if tax advantaged space is so readily available
Fund HSA to max amount available after steps 1, 2 and 3 (again if available).
Fund Income Earner IRA to the amount still available (again deductible IRA)
Pretty sure that money is all used up at this pointâŠbut more equally split between the two spouses, with more flexibility in how it can be accessed if necessary while still mostly going into tax advantaged space.
It was important to me that my wife had her own financial security as well.
Our approach has been to have a single shared bank account and shared credit cards, but to have separate investment and retirement accounts. She has always earned well, but I have earned more, and we made a conscious decision to try to balance the investment accounts in each of our names. If for whatever reason I go crazy and drive her away, she will still be financially set.
By the way, I retired a couple of years ago, and she has chosen to continue working. At this point, I am the âkept manâ in the relationship.
