‘No, my wife doesn’t work — she’s a housewife’: American single-career families

Abstract

In this chapter, I focus on professional men whose wives stay at home and on ‘at home’ wives married to professionals. The effects of work tensions on family relationships are discussed separately for men and women in order to give emphasis to the special perspective of each group. These differences are more acute in the single-career families than in those families where both husbands and wives practise professionally because of the contrasting daily experiences of the men and women and the greater separation of roles. The woman at home is most affected by disturbances in the marriage (Goode, 1964). Psychologically and materially, she is dependent on that relationship; often she has no outside involvements to relieve the strains at home. In turn, her reactions to this situation influence the development of the marriage.