The problem of the work-marriage choice

In the average family, the girl is taught economic dependence. In school she may be trained vocationally, and the work world may beckon her with an independent career. There is an obvious conflict between the standards of the average family regarding woman's ideal role and the role she actually plays in an urbanindustrial culture.

The major problem of all women is that of making adjustments (1) in the realm of love and sex and (2) in the realm of economics. In the first realm women have greater difficulty than men since the role of women in love adjustments is much less clearly defined than that of men. Sex codes, as they apply to women's behavior, have been in a more rapid process of modification during recent years than have those of men.

This is true also in the role of economic adjustment. It has always been assumed in our culture that man is to be the breadwinner. This is still what society expects of all men, but what society expects of women in this regard is not so clearly defined and, therefore, is in the realm of individual choice. Women choose first whether or not they will have a vocation and then what the vocation will be. A man decides only what his vocation will be. Even after having chosen a vocation, a woman's position is not settled. There is always the question of how long she will keep it, which affects her adjustments to it and her efficiency in it. Shall it be considered temporary until satisfactory marriage is possible, or shall it continue? If it is to continue, will it be only until the husband's earning power increases or until a child is born?

These are some of the perplexities that are peculiar to woman's adjustments in a complex society. The focal point of most of these decisions is the adolescent-youth period.

The majority of young people of this generation apparently feel that married young women should work at least under certain circumstances.

The problem of the work-marriage choice of the educated young woman in American society is one of the most critical of all her problems. The whole emphasis of modern education and of modern economic life is to create in the ambitious young woman the desire for a career. She receives, in school competition as well as in her work experience, a satisfying taste of the thrills of an independent career. From these experiences many young women are arbitrarily pulled back into the home by marriage and are expected immediately to direct all their energies and interests toward the problem of homemaking and child rearing for which the school system unfortunately has given them practically no preparation and no motivation. In the home they are supposed to be able to fulfill all the traditional expectations of wife and mother; to maintain themselves as charming youth and thus remain for their husbands a center of emotional attraction; to be the kind, considerate, and understanding mother who forgets all her own ambitions and strivings for a career in the interests of devotion to her children and to her husband.

It is little wonder that so many young women by the time they have finished college, or even high school and a period of business or professional activity, find the transition psychologically impossible and end up as frustrated wives, irritated mothers, and defeated career women. It seems clear that we must either change radically the values and objectives of education as they apply to woman's role of wife and mother, giving these values a new place, or else so modify the family institution that women can have an independent career along with husband and children. This could undoubtedly be achieved if society were to supplement the family by various child-rearing institutions such as domestic help, nursery and preschool supervision, and other subsidies in cash or in services to the mother who is both a wage or salary worker and mother.