CAN YOU MARRY A WOMAN THAT EARNS MORE?

By: Ada

It’s truly shocking knowing the amount of 'breadwinner wives' who earn more than their men. Some studies have it at 19 per cent, with another 25 per cent earning the same amount as their men folk. It means that almost half of us now earn as much or more than our husbands and partners. It's a staggering figure that represents what is probably the biggest and most significant social shift of our time, with far-reaching implications for personal relationships and family lives which we are only just beginning to fully appreciate. 

So who are these breadwinner wives? How have we gone from 1960, when just 4 per cent of women out-earned their men, to this? 

How do they - and their men - feel about their new status? And are they shining role models for a new generation or a recipe for relationship disaster? Take Oby for instance, she is 35, A director of her own Event Management Company, she comes from a well-off professional background and was brought up to believe there were no limits to what she could achieve.

She first began dating her husband Uche, 40, a customer services manager, when they were both in their teens.  But, she says, 'he dumped me earlier because he was intimidated by my ambition'. Four years ago, they were reintroduced through friends.

In the intervening years, Oby fast-tracked her way up the career ladder and now earns as much as five times what Uche does, with the potential to increase that even more over the coming years.When she landed a N5,000.000.00 contract, Uche's initial reaction was: "You've just earned in a month what I earn in a year!" he was really not too happy with it from the look on his face, although he tried hiding it, it just could not be hidden.

I know there are a large number of breadwinner wives that admit privately that while their men may delight in their success, the women can be secretly frustrated and disrespectful if their partner doesn't match their hunger and earning power. It’s a feeling borne out by relationship patterns

Although successful men are often happy to marry a woman who will be less ambitious, successful women tend to marry men who are their economic equals and as more women out-earn men, both can struggle to find a sense of identity. 'The problem is that our social and emotional lives haven't changed as fast as our economic and public lives,' Most women work, and while attitudes have moved on (working women don't expect to be 'kept', while men are happier to help out around the house and with childcare), our personal lives are still heavily defined by the experiences with which we grew up.

Our fathers largely derived their sense of identity from their ability to provide and protect, and our mothers from their family and domestic lives. 

Oby  and Uche's situation is increasingly reflected in professions such as Medicine and the Law, where women have begun to outnumber men and therefore often earn more than their partners.

Of course, not all working women are ambitious and driven. Many are working simply because their families need their income, and increasing numbers are finding themselves accidental breadwinners because men's jobs have been hit far harder than women's in the economic downturn. I can remember one of my neigbours Funmi, the woman supported financially for everything in the house, from house rent to school fees for the their four children as well as feeding. It was so crazy. She was never happy each time you saw her she was always lost in thoughts. The husband Andrew could not be borthered . He just went out every morning and came back in the evening to meet a hot meal at the dining table. In my little conversation with Funmi she made me understand that her husband was trying his best to provide, but I knew that was a big lie. The pride of a woman.

The most recent unemployment figures reveal that the number of men losing their jobs has increased by almost 50 per cent because traditionally 'male' sectors such as construction, finance and manufacturing have been the hardest hit. It's an economic situation that puts many women under pressure to keep earning, whether it's their choice or not. 

However, the economic rise of women has given a measure of economic freedom to hundreds of thousands who used to be dependent on men for everything.It also releases men from the burden of being sole breadwinner, and creates more equal relationships. But there's no doubt that social attitudes and policies are still trailing far behind I think most people would still prefer the man to be the main breadwinner. 

Most women are not dazzling highflyers, but work in average jobs in the average earning bracket and are neither particularly fulfilled or enriched by their  jobs, even though  they need the money. In fact, they don't have time for anything, and constant tiredness is a national epidemic. No wonder they sometimes look back at their younger selves and wonder if it is all worth it.

As my own mother, who was a housewife, says: 'Congratulations! You've won the right to work yourself into an early grave.' But even when it gets tough, most men and women say they wouldn't want to turn back the clock and we couldn't, even if we wanted to.

'Our economy needs working women now, and we'll be seeing more and more female breadwinners as time goes on.' We should celebrate our achievements as women, which have been so enormous and rapid that they amount to a revolution. 

But it's a very incomplete revolution - and it's time the rest of our lives caught up with our achievements at work. If the past 40 years have been all about women entering the workforce and boosting the economy, the next 40 will be spent dealing with the social, personal and family consequences. 

And that may be the hardest part of all.

WHAT DO WE DO?