Wifework: What Marriage Really Means for Women

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We also have a system for reminding us of upcoming dates, e.g. birthdays, insurance up, car service or whatever. DH set this up on his computer. Whoever is least busy generally organises whatever needs doing. Wifework is a fiercely argued, in-depth look at the inequitable division of labor between husbands and wives. Bolstering her own personal experience as a twice-married mother of three with substantial research and broad statistical evidence, Susan Maushart explores the theoretical and evolutionary reasons behind marriage inequality. She forces us to consider why 50 per cent of marriages end in divorce, and why women are responsible for initiating three-quarters of them. If family life is worth saving, and Maushart passionately believes it is, the job description for wives will have to be rewritten.

Anti-prostitution feminists and even policymakers often ask sex workers whether we would have sex with our clients if we were not being paid. Work is thus re-inscribed as something so personally fulfilling you would pursue it for free. Indeed, this understanding is in some ways embedded in much anti-prostitution advocacy through the prevalence of unpaid internships in such organizations. Equality Now, a multimillion-dollar anti-prostitution organization, instructs applicants that their internships will be unpaid (adding that “we are unable to arrange housing or visas”). Ruhama advertises numerous volunteer roles that could easily be paid jobs. In 2013 Turn Off the Red Light, an Irish anti-prostitution NGO consortium, advertised for an intern who would not be paid the minimum wage. The result of these unpaid and underpaid internships is that the women who are most able to build careers in the women’s sector—campaigning and setting policy agendas around prostitution—are women who can afford to do unpaid full-time work in New York and London. In this context, it is hardly a surprise that the anti-prostitution movement as a whole has a somewhat abstracted view of the relationship between work and money.When it comes to family-making, reproductive technologies have not only rendered sex expendable, they've rendered fatherhood expendable too. At least theoretically, a father need be nothing more than - as one advice manual for solo mums suggests - 'a nice man who wanted to help me become your mother'.

Clearly, the world had moved on from the kind of marriage my parents made in the deep, dark recesses of the early Fifties. Girls were now educated exactly as boys were (I believed). They competed equally in the workplace (I believed). Thanks to the Pill, young women were as free as young men to explore and express their sexuality. Having children was now clearly a choice and, if you made that choice, you and your partner shared equally in the benefits and consequences. Mr. Mere does 90 percent of the "wifework" in our house--including laundry, cooking, and grocery shopping. My contributions include freelance jobs to supplement our salaries (which are almost exactly equal) and managing the bills and household finances. According to Wifework, our marriage is one in a million.

I think he should learn to fend for himself. Especially as he's forced me into this co-habiting arrangement.