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What is relevant to this post is what the authors found out when they investigated why more poor women didn't marry in order to escape poverty. This was an important question, since married couples are far less likely to be poor than single women.
First off, when it comes to women landing a man in that fashion, you need to have a certain level of looks.
Now that that's out of the way, as I said before, education is the major factor. Most wealthy guys have some education and they want a woman who at least has a minimum level.
When you say poor, I think of somebody who has only a HS education, is from the ghetto and has three kids. Obviously, no rich guy wants a piece of that. But take the same lady from the ghetto, give her a cheezy degree in History from some top liberal arts school, get rid of the child baggage, and she's a top prospect to be financially secure.
Yes. The point is that love is NOT blind and deaf. Real Life is the back drop to one's whole life. Stability relieves an awful lot of stress from a relationship.
Not disagreeing, but where would these disparate populations meet?
Even within the poor communities the authors studied, there was always a layer of men and women who were significantly better off than their neighbors. Most had managed to land decent blue-collar jobs; a few worked in low-level public sector jobs that at least paid a living wage and offered some benefits. These folks would almost always marry others like themselves.
...but isn't that true for men as well? I think it is.
This question came to mind after I finished reading a book titled "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage." It is a fascinating read. It reveals that a lot of behaviors among the poor that seem self-destructive actually make sense given their circumstances. But that's another discussion.
What is relevant to this post is what the authors found out when they investigated why more poor women didn't marry in order to escape poverty. This was an important question, since married couples are far less likely to be poor than single women.
The answer: the better off, more economically stable men wouldn't marry poor women. In fact, in all of the communities the authors studied, the best off, most economically stable men and women tended to marry each other. No one, male or female, was interested in marrying anyone below their own economic level. On the contrary, both women and men consistently married partners who would enhance their own household income and raise their standard of living.
I think this is an interesting revelation...
So, how does this work when BOTH people are 'marrying up'?!?!
I think most men doesn't want to feel like they're used for their money, but have othing against being the primary breadwinner...
that said if the differences are too wide, they're not gonna have much more in common than the bedroom,
think about it, a good university education is at least 5 years, a substancial ammount of time.
working 40h+ a week is also a substancial ammount of time spent at doing something.
I want a woman who'll actually want to enjoy her life rather than having lots of money, which is insanely over-rated. That would mean, a woman who would prefer to be a housewife, or mostly a housewife (maybe she can work part-time at a supermarket or wherever to get us health insurance, whereas in this economy I might have to be self-employed in the long run). Enjoying life means being a housewife? YES. WHO THE HELL WANTS TO WORK!? I feel like our society has gone nuts!. I would PREFER to do the cooking, and spend more time with the kids, any sewing necessary, have time to go to the gym in the middle of the day, etc. People are obsessed with their "wealth" nowadays as opposed to their lifestyle.
Not to mention, that the housewife thing actually saves time and money. Did you know a housewife can save anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a year, depending on how she does it? When you take into account the time you both save in the end, that is, when the working one (the guy, usually) comes home and doesn't have to do any shopping, cooking, anything, it's all done, it sure as hell beats making only a little more money, because when you do the numbers, you get REAMED on taxes when you're talking dual incomes.
All the women want to "work" nowadays, but it's always actually some stupid non-productive job that only exists in our government-bloated economy (teacher, special ed - I just had a thread where I mentioned all the girls on the dating sites seem to be in special ed), and they turn up their noses at housewives, who do more REAL work daily than they ever will in their lives.
It has the downside that you are dependent on the man, (you might be un-hirable later on in life if things don't work out with him) but this is overblown. Or rather, it's not worth it to ruin your lifestyle just because of it. Not to mention the risk can be abated, if you're actualy very clear with your spouse about what you expect, and... let's call it direct-action enforcement that you will apply should he screw around. People are such slaves in their minds they see law as the only enforcer out there, and now that our marriage laws suck they think that's the end of marriage. No, Victoria, you're a human being too, you have agency too, you can make it so a guy doesn't screw around on you.
But no, people are slaves so no one wants to give up the ability to make money so everyone feels they have to constantly work, just so that they can work later if they need to. F!@#in retarded.
I think so too. My ex-husband made double what I did, but because of my income, it afforded us more opportunities than covering just the basics. His first wife never worked and he worked 2 jobs to provide.
My SO (fiance) and I make almost the same, and he's thrilled that he has an equal partner, who also has the same views on saving and spending. We made enough to cover our own respective homes, but combining everything into one house has allowed us more breathing room and ability to save, and splurge on occasion.
When children enter the equation, it often doesn't make sense for both spouses to work, if the second income is merely covering daycare expenses. But beyond that, I really don't know any men or women who want to be with someone who isn't financially stable.
If the man is not rich, then it is a completely different story.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
The answer: the better off, more economically stable men wouldn't marry poor women. In fact, in all of the communities the authors studied, the best off, most economically stable men and women tended to marry each other. No one, male or female, was interested in marrying anyone below their own economic level. On the contrary, both women and men consistently married partners who would enhance their own household income and raise their standard of living.
There were a couple of similar/related studies that came out of the Kennedy School at the time this book came out (which also touches on how single motherhood in many ways does make economic/social sense to certain classes). One of the other papers was an examination of what has led to the greater wealth gap that we've seen in the country. One of the main findings (and no, not surprising) is that well off women marry other well off men quite frequently (doubling household income) while poor women don't marry at all, and there was a bunch in between, but the low staying low (or getting lower with declining wages) and the well off teaming up was much of the cause. Of course, the phenomena of single women being capable of earning six figures plus is a relatively new thing.
well youre only considering people who end up getting married, too. plenty of people have happy and healthy long term relationships and wont get married or will file income taxes separately or whatever due to differing finances. this is just a silly example but my bf has 50k in student loans. he makes enough to support himself and can do income-based payments on his loans so they're not so bad. yea he made some poor college choices lol. but i make a lot more than him so if we were to get married he'd have to start paying up on those loans. i got an earlier start on my career so he will probably catch up income-wise then it will make sense to get married, but for now it would cause us both more financial stress if we were to do so.
on a related note, how many of those "single women" have live-in, paying, signficant other to whom they're just not married?
If the man is not rich, then it is a completely different story.
Of course, then he'd like some financial help.
We're not giving each other "financial help". We were both self-supporting, owning our own homes individually, before we sold those to buy a house together. We didn't do it because we had to, it's because we wanted to, and the byproduct of that is more flexibility with our finances.
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