Careers and Marriage
Point: Don't Marry Career Women - By Michael Noer - How do women, careers and marriage mix? Not well, say social scientists.
vs.
Counterpoint: Don't Marry A Lazy Man - By Elizabeth Corcoran - Studies aside, modern marriage is a two way street. Men should own up to their responsibilities, too.
Of course this doesn't apply to EVERY case, but it seems to me that the guy's article is fairly accurate with studies to back it up. It's a shame the woman can't come up with an argument that's not just based on anecdotal evidence, opinion or general marriage advice. Sorry, but men and women ARE different and that's OK!
Bad studies though - they fail to correct for some very basic things. Marriages in which one person works and one person stays at home implies that there are children; that one person makes enough to support the family; and that the marriage lasted long enough to produce children. Right there, you've eliminated a lot of common causes of divorce. The people who are [i]able[/i] to make a "traditional" marriage work are already coming from a different place - these studies are reversing the causation. Traditional roles don't cause good marriage; a good home life allows people to have a traditional marriage.
ReplyDeleteWhen a woman stays at home and a husband works, both know that divorce is financial hell - the husband knows that he'll be taken to the cleaners, while the wife knows that she has no marketable skills. Hence the reason why a woman working outside of home increases the likelihood of divorce in bad marriages but not stable ones.
People also stay married because of the kids. If you don't have kids, you're more likely to divorce.
With a very low earning threshold for "career women," the study sweeps in young people - again, more likely to divorce and be unhappy in their marriages.
As Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Welcome to the third one.
I'm with you though - wish that the Forbes "Counterpoint" woman had actually pointed out the flaws with his article and offered alternatives.