A solid marriage also supports the well being of both members, medical research shows.

History also shows that women are amazingly responsive to their times and places.

When the world needs them to work, they work—whether you are talking about the first women who arrived in America to find something less than the paradise promised or Rosie the Riveter, the symbol of women working in factories during World War II.

When things improve, historically, they have returned to traditional roles, even decorative ones.  A century or so after women worked as hard as men to establish themselves in a new country, they had been relegated to the nursery or the parlor. Everyone knew that money matters were too much for mere women.

In this new century, marital parity may become the norm and not an emergency strategy.

More women are better educated, as statistics from higher education studies show. This story says that the research study quoted below found that in nearly one-third of marriages, the wife had more schooling and so can marry men who like a real partnership.

For two brief—very brief—periods, I made more than my husband did. He thought this was so great, he told people.  But then, secure men do think such things as women making better pay than their men is great. Just so the money is in the bank, who cares how it got there? Confident men don’t care. There were very few like him at the time.

Happily, the numbers of secure men like him seem to be growing rapidly.

And, the bottom line is, most marriages benefit from wives’ working in a variety of ways.

Things have changed so much that when I saw the question, “Was a financially successful woman a threat to her husband or a relief?” I asked myself, can this still be a real question?

The Pew Research Center does not spend time or money on surveys in which the answers are already known so, to answer my own question, yes, apparently this has remained a question people did not have the answer to—or, at least, not outside their own homes.

The New York Times

“EVER since Betty Friedan urged women to leave the house and pursue careers, people have argued over whether women’s marriages and romantic prospects would suffer for it. Was a financially successful woman a threat to her husband or a relief? (Emphasis added)

“When do economic imbalances in marriages matter?

“Last week, a report from the Pew Research Center about what it called “the rise of wives” revived the debate. Based on a study of Census data, Pew found that in nearly a third of marriages, the wife is better educated than her husband. And though men, over all, still earn more than women, wives are now the primary breadwinner in 22 percent of couples, up from 7 percent in 1970.

“While the changing economic roles of husbands and wives may take some getting used to, the shift has had a surprising effect on marital stability. Over all, the evidence shows that the shifts within marriages — men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home — have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions. (Emphasis added)

“Women no longer need to marry up educationally or economically, so they are more likely to pick men who support a more egalitarian relationship,” said Stephanie Coontz, director of research and education for the Council on Contemporary Families and author of “Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.” (Emphasis added)

Source: New York Times, January 22, 2010

Source: Pew Research Center Report, “New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of the Wives,” January 19, 2010