http://www.slate.com/id/2137537/nav/tap1/


In The Feminine Mystique, the late Betty Friedan attributed the malaise of married women largely to traditionalist marriages in which wives ran the home and men did the bread-winning. Her book helped spark the sexual revolution of the 1970s and fueled the notion that egalitarian partnerships—where both partners have domestic responsibilities and pursue jobs—would make wives happier. Last week, two sociologists at the University of Virginia published an exhaustive study of marital happiness among women that challenges this assumption. Stay-at-home wives, according to the authors, are more content than their working counterparts. And happiness, they found, has less to do with division of labor than with the level of commitment and "emotional work" men contribute (or are perceived to contribute). But the most interesting data may be that the women who strongly identify as progressive—the 15 percent who agree most with feminist ideals—have a harder time being happy than their peers, according to an analysis that has been provided exclusively to Slate. Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women—who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for—are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed.

Of course, conclusions like these are never cut-and-dried. This study is based on surveys conducted between 1992 and 1994, and measuring marital happiness is a little like trying to quantify sex appeal. But the data are nonetheless worth pausing over, especially if, like me, you've long subscribed to the view that so-called companionate couples have the best chance at sustaining a happy partnership. Among all the married women surveyed, 52 percent of homemakers considered themselves very happy. Yet only 45 percent of the most progressive-minded homemakers considered themselves happy. This might not seem surprising—presumably, many progressive women prefer to work than stay at home. But the difference in happiness persists even among working wives. Forty-one percent of all the working wives surveyed said they were happy, compared with 38 percent of the progressive working wives. The same was the case when it came to earnings. Forty-two percent of wives who earned one-third or more of the couple's income reported being happy, compared with 34 percent of progressive women in the same position. Perhaps the progressive women had hoped to earn more. But they were less happy than their peers about being a primary breadwinner—though you might expect the opposite. Across the board, progressive women are less likely to feel content, whether they are working or at home, and no matter how much they are making.

What's really going on here? The conservative explanation, of course, is that the findings suggest that women don't know what they really want (as John Tierney implied in the New York Times, and Charlotte Allen suggested in the Los Angeles Times). Feminism, they argue, has only undermined the sturdy institution of marriage for everyone. The feminist and liberal argument is that reality hasn't yet caught up to women's expectations. Women have entered the workforce, but men still haven't picked up the domestic slack—working wives continue to do 70 percent or more of the housework, according to one study. If you work hard and come home and find you have to do much more than your husband does, it's little wonder that you would be angry and frustrated.

Neither explanation seems quite right. (The authors found that equal division of labor seems not to correlate strongly with happiness, either.) What is left out of both lines of argument are the strange ways that rising expectations play into happiness. The sexual revolution tried to free women and men from set-in-stone roles. But the irony turns out to be that having a degree of certainty about what you want (and being in a peer group that feels the same way) is helpful in making people happy. Having more choices about what you want makes you less likely to be happy with whatever choice you end up settling on. Choosing among six brands of jam is easy. But consumers presented with 24 types often leave the supermarket without making a purchase. In much the same way, the more you scrutinize a relationship, the more likely you are to find fault with it. The study's authors, W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, speculate that fault-finding on the part of wives makes it hard for men to do the emotional work that stabilizes marriages. Meanwhile, traditionalist women—a significant portion of whom are Christian—expect less emotional work from their husbands, Wilcox and Nock speculate, which makes it easier for them to shake off frustrations, and less likely to nag. Whether or not any of this is the case, we do know that traditional marriages have the advantage of offering clearly defined roles. And traditionalist wives have a peer group fundamentally in agreement about what it wants and expects from husbands, creating a built-in support system.

Consider the evidence that evangelical women—who in general endorse traditional gender roles—are better at adjusting psychologically to situations they don't find ideal than feminists are. Studies of evangelical wives who have to work for financial reasons show that, as rigid as gender roles are in their community, women are fairly adept at being what sociologist Sally Gallagher calls "pragmatically egalitarian." That is, they continue to be happy with the division of labor, and to see their husbands as providers, even though they'd prefer to be at home. It's a kind of utilitarian double-think, Gallagher and others argue—and it helps explain why traditionalist women who work might consider themselves happier than feminists who are still struggling to feel secure in their decisions.

It may be, too, that traditional marriage today is happier than it was, thanks to feminism. Traditionalists have been able to maintain the pre-Freidan goals, but all the societal movement in the other direction has had a freeing effect on their marriages, too. (That is, Dad still works and Mom stays at home, but thanks to the general liberalizing of society, Dad can feel OK about helping more at home and Mom can feel OK about having a chance to work more, too.) In other words, their goal has stayed the same (that is, maintaining traditional marriage roles), but they can pursue it under much less draconian circumstances. No wonder they're happier. They're free-riders on the women's movement (though they'd deny it), whereas feminists have descended into a tangle of second guesses and contradictions.

Dismantling a tradition and carving out a new one can be far more confusing than adjusting to glitches in the status quo. Progressive women find themselves navigating marriage as a choose-your-own-adventure story, which raises the chances of feeling that they perhaps made the wrong turn along the way. A progressive-minded woman doesn't just have higher expectations; she's more likely to pay attention to every setback, and see her husband's failure to listen at dinner as evidence of larger inequity. Meanwhile, the paradox of rising expectations can make real differences seem bigger even as they grow smaller.

Would reverting to traditional gender roles make women happier? Hardly. This study doesn't mean that the feminist genie should—or can—be put back in the kitchen. (For one thing, the study found that working at home made progressive women less happy than their traditionalist counterparts.) But it may be a bracing reminder that worrying endlessly over choices isn't the path to greater freedom, equality, or happiness for women. Wilcox and Nock's study leaves husbands out of the picture. What we might wait for is a study that examines husbands' happiness—and tells us something about how they view male cultural scripts that remain comparatively stagnant. Maybe for them, too, clear (even rigid) expectations would correlate with marital happiness. Or maybe if it were an easier choice for them to spend more time with their children, or to turn down a prestigious office job because they want more freedom, everyone would be happier. In any case, the progressive lesson of the moment (or is it a traditionalist lesson?) is that it's time to focus less on "her" marriage—and to remember that sometimes the personal is just personal.

double post.

What an awesome study.

The results can be twisted to fit whatever political conclusions you want them to. I'm glad people's time and energy was spent compiling all of this information. It will no doubt do our country a lot of good.

Someone needs to revise the Seven Deadly Sins...

To include sarcasm?

Nice pun. I didn't intend it.

But yes... sarcasm would be nice... or better yet, a bullshit alert.

Yeah. But. When they do make a choice, they are probably far happier with it. I have seen this exact logic used to argue against free markets, it was bs then and is bs now.

Did it occur to the study authors that there just might be some hardwired behavior & thought patterns in our genes that no amount of progressive society can alter?

I'd have to agree. I would guess most women do great in any environment where emotional instinct and nurturing are valuable. They're probably unhappy when we ask them to be men in the workplace. Now if we could only get women to realize that expressing emotions for men is what makes them unhappy we'd have a good start on utopia.

I'm a very happy feminist, so I tend to think the study is a load of bunk.

I think the results of these studies, if they are to be believed, say more about the tedium of the workplace than anything relating to gender. Not even thinking about me being a male, I will say that if I had the choice of going to work or staying home with my kids, I would probably choose the latter. Would you rather go to the office for eight hours, or stay home and actually be with the reasons you are working? I know kids are a major hassle, but they can't be worse than the jobs that many people have. Does anyone else think this could be the case?

A nice mix of both is best, in my personal experience, no matter how much the job sucks.

I wonder if this study took age into account at all.
I really cannot see any correlation being truly accurate without surveying men. Maybe this is just about how happy married people are in general. And if a study of the happiness of husbands was about the same would feminism really be an issue?
Also I find it odd if liberal or progressive women are less happy in their marriages why do the majority of "blue" states have the lowest divorce rates and the majority of "red" states have divorce rates above the national average?

Personally I think the lack of choices is making women unhappy in marriage. Yes we can all choose our profession, and our marriage partner, and whether or not we want kids. But after those choices are made, it seems like they are set in stone. After you have kids and a house, you cannot rightly go start persuing a lower paying job. You can't be taking night classes because you'll never get to see the family. Well you can, but there's a lot of guilt involved.

How do these evangelical families do it? They all have 15(+-) kids and only the dad works. I'm guessing it's because their location has a much lower cost of living than Boston. Any thoughts?

gogol wrote:
I'd have to agree. I would guess most women do great in any environment where emotional instinct and nurturing are valuable. They're probably unhappy when we ask them to be men in the workplace. Now if we could only get women to realize that expressing emotions for men is what makes them unhappy we'd have a good start on utopia.[/quote]

My experience has been that humans are emotional creatures. I think men just lack the intellect to deal with their and their mate's emotions, so they end up burying it all, or at least trying to. Women appreciate men who enjoy expressions of emotions from both parties. On the contrary, it makes them quite happy.

As far as women in the workplace, I don't think women are asked to be men. A woman can do any job a man can, they just do it in a smarter way. A good example I've noticed is jobs where heavy lifting is involved. Women minimize the physicality by using equipment, getting help (something men would be wise to do), or using innovative lifting techniques.

I have been amazed at women's adaptability and intelligence. I like them.

The results of this study are'nt statistically overwhelming. The numbers are too close to show a definite tendency one way or the other. Besides, we all know it's a woman's prerogative is to change her mind.

i was forced into housewife-dom by a medical disability.

it has been 4 years since my doctors took me out of full time work, and even though i recieve disability benefits and work part time (and that ends up being about what i made full time) i still struggle with the fact that i am largely dependant on my husband.

so i cook, i clean, i do all sorts of housewifey stuff that makes it easier for my husband to get up and go to work. but that housewife stuff...i am disgusted by it and proud of it at the same time.

i never imagined i would be in this kind of situation, so all of this is an uneasy fit with my stridently independent personality.

this study may be a load of bunk, but i believe that there really is a struggle going on in the feminine mind. women are instinctual caretakers (yes, this is a generalization) but we were raised to believe that we are equal to men and that we should be afforded every opportunity a man is afforded. so to cook and clean for a man feels all wrong.

the women who are hard at work may be longing to fulfill that nesting instinct, and the women who are at home may be longing for the personal satisfaction and acheivement of a career.

i think the most important point in this study was overlooked: the "fact" that men seem not to be taking up the slack for their working wives.

if women can push aside the instinct to nest and nurture in favor of a career and bringing $$ into the household, then surely men can push aside the instinct to sit on their fucking fat asses (another generalization) when they get home from work in favor of helping his working wife take care of the kids and the home.

my conclusion: men are making working women unhappy by not being an equal partner in all things.

If at any point in life you are basing your happiness on others then you've made yourself into an emotional cripple.

dude, i don't even know what that means.

if you are married and have children/house/whatever respsonsibilities, it is a partnership. if one partner is not holding up his/her end of the deal, it is like trying to move a couch by yourself. it just sucks.

Lots of things in life suck. But any person who goes into a marriage with their eyes wide open will know what they are getting themselves in for. If any person bases their happiness on the reactions of other people they've lost sight of what happiness is and have made themselves into an emotional cripple.

Happiness comes from within. It's not based on external factors, likeI'll be happy today if the sun shines or my husband does the dishes or I win the lottery. Happiness comes from accepting where you are in/with life and determining to make the best of it. Happiness is a decision you make for yourself every morning when you wake up.

I think tyler's saying "you are what you eat."