Two-Income Couples​—A Long History

RICHARD is not embarrassed to don an apron. Moving through the kitchen, he clears the table, sweeps the floor, washes the dishes​—a picture of domestic competence. “It’s my turn to clean up,” he explains. “Carol’s catching a couple of hours of sleep because later tonight she has to go to work.”a

Richard and Carol share a life-style that in many places has become the rule rather than the exception: A two-income marriage. In the United States the number of wives in the labor force has virtually tripled since 1950. And according to recent estimates, more than three fifths of married couples in the United States have two incomes. Countries such as France, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, and Japan have followed a similar pattern.

Of course, readers in many so-called developing nations may wonder what all the excitement is about. For there, women have traditionally had a large share in earning income. (See page 4.) Nevertheless, the rise of the two-income family is somewhat of a phenomenon in the West. Why is this so?

“Economic Liabilities”

That men should be the sole breadwinners is not only peculiarly Western but quite modern. The book The Individual, Marriage, and the Family says that throughout most of human history “women have been full equals of men in providing for the economic needs of the family.”

The Bible illustrates how women in ancient times made their economic contribution. In Proverbs 31, the “capable wife” is described. Not only did she care for household duties but she also earned income. Purchasing property, farming, and manufacturing and selling clothing were some of her money-making skills. (Proverbs 31:16, 24) At Acts 18:2, 3 the Bible tells of a couple named Aquila and Priscilla who worked at the same trade together. Bible commentator Adam Clarke observes: “Women, even of the highest ranks, among the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites, worked with their hands at every kind of occupation necessary for the support of the family.”

For centuries men and women worked as economic partners. Work, however, centered around the home. Then came the industrial revolution, and men sought factory jobs in the big cities. This change from cottage industries and farming, though, put men in “jobs away from home​—jobs whose demands did not include participation by wives or offspring.” What was the result? Women, say some, became “economic liabilities.”​—Scientific American.

Industrialization nevertheless brought a measure of prosperity. And as the Western nations pulled out of a depression and a second world war, a middle-class (or even higher) standard of living became the eagerly sought goal of many families. And for a while high salaries, low prices, and easy credit allowed some men to provide their families with homes, cars​—and even some of the astonishing array of new products and gadgets that were now dangled before them.

The middle-class dream, however, proved for many to be a subtle trap as inflation began its deadly spiral. As early as the 1960’s, says writer Marvin Harris, “parents were finding it increasingly harder to achieve or hold on to middle-class status.” To illustrate: In 1965 the average sale price of a new one-family home in the United States was $20,000. By the second quarter of 1984, the price had ballooned to about $100,000! The cost of food and clothing similarly went out of control. Wives thus began streaming to the job market in record numbers.

‘We Needed More Money’

Richard and Carol (mentioned at the outset) own a comfortable yet, by U.S. standards, modest home. But like many other couples they found themselves caught in the grip of inflation. Says Carol: “We simply needed more money if we were to pay our bills. I realized that Richard couldn’t make much more than he was already making. So I really had no choice but to get a full-time job.” No, the philosophy of the Women’s Liberation Movement has not been the main force propelling women into the job market. Asked why they both work, most couples will reply: ‘Because we need the money!’ (See page 5.)

Some women resent being uprooted from the home. “Working outside the home is killing me by inches,” lamented one woman. Yet there are many who welcome their jobs. “I love to work,” says another woman who manages a furniture showroom. “I just am not a housewife.” Skyrocketing divorce rates and the specter of widowhood have also had a share in luring women to jobs. “I would be very frightened not to work,” says one woman. “I lost my first husband when I was twenty-two . . . Now I always have in the back of my mind the thought that if Stephen died or ran off with some young thing I would be in a terrible predicament if I didn’t have a job.”

Still, for most couples, it is a desire to stay afloat financially that has made them two-income families. What, then, are some of the challenges they face, and how can they successfully meet them?

[Footnotes]

[Box on page 4]

Working Women in Developing Countries

“Women in Southeast Asia boil palm sugar. West African women brew beer. Women in parts of Mexico and elsewhere make pottery. Women in most countries weave cloth and make clothes. Women in most cultures sell their surplus food in local markets. Profits from these activities generally belong to the women themselves.”​—Irene Tinker in the book Women and World Development.

Take, for example, the Akan people of southern and central Ghana. Writes Rae André: “Women plant, men harvest; women trade in the market, men trade over longer distances. Traditionally, husbands and wives have had separate savings and investments and have been entitled to any profits made from their own labor or trade.”

The old way of life, though, is quickly changing as nations gear up for industrialization. The reason? Industrialists introduce not only Western technology but also Western culture. Typically, developers will teach new farming techniques to the men​—even when farming is the domain of women. Factory jobs are likewise made almost exclusively available to men. What have been the effects of all of this?

Consider Indonesia. There the job of rice hulling was traditionally done by women. However, in the early 1970’s, small Japanese-built rice hullers were introduced, depriving women of their livelihood.

In the Guatemalan town of San Pedro, wives worked as weavers, while husbands were farmers and traders. Women there took what Dr. T. Bachrach Ehlers calls “fierce pride” in being economically productive. Suddenly, new weaving machines were introduced. But only men were extended the credit needed to purchase them. Women therefore lost control of the weaving industry and now work for the low wages paid by factory bosses.

In Kenya some women are left behind “on the family plot of land to scratch out a living for themselves and their children” as their husbands pursue salaried employment in the cities. When they eventually rejoin their husbands to live in high-rise apartments, they find, according to a Kenyan official, “nothing more than a place for people to commit suicide.” Why? “Kenyans,” he explains, “like to be on the ground; they like to have a piece of soil to call their own.”

In India women have traditionally had “low ritual status.” Thus the better-paying jobs are often viewed as inappropriate for a woman. (Even Gandhi, who spoke of the equality of women, once said that “equality of the sexes does not mean equality of occupations.”) Nevertheless, observes the book Women in Contemporary India, middle-class working women have now had “the opportunity to develop a taste for material goods.” Cultural and religious taboos may therefore give way to another earmark of Westernization​—materialism.

Ironically, women in the Third World find themselves working harder than ever, but without the economic independence​—or security—​they once enjoyed.

[Box on page 5]

Why Both Work

United States: In one survey of 41,000 women, 82 percent of the women who held jobs said they did so because they needed money to cover their current expenses.

France: There, “more women work outside the home than in any other Western European country.” Some 84 percent do so “solely out of economic necessity.”

Canada: A study done by the University of Toronto revealed that “husbands of women who work full-time typically earn less than do other men. The median income among the men in families where the women work full-time was $18,240, compared to . . . $22,273 where the husbands are the sole breadwinners.”

India: Sociologist Zarina Bhatty says: “Women work because they have to, and not because they find in it the means for greater freedom, economic independence or self-expression.”

[Picture on page 5]

The industrial revolution took men away from the farms and gave them jobs in factories. Some felt that women became “economic liabilities”