#but if your partner is your sole financial support...you're courting danger IMO

[marzipanandminutiae]

thoughts on "tradwives" as a 19th-century social historian

It's great until it's not.

It's great until he develops an addiction and starts spending all the money on it.

It's great until you realize he's abusive and hid it long enough to get you totally in his power (happened to my great-great-aunt Irene).

It's great until he gets injured and can't work anymore.

It's great until he dies and your options are "learn a marketable skill fast" or "marry the first eligible man you can find."

It's great until he wants child #7 and your body just can't take another pregnancy, but you can't leave or risk desertion because he's your meal ticket.

It's great until he tries to make you run a brothel as a get-rich-quick scheme and deserts you when you refuse, leaving your sisters to desperately fundraise so your house doesn't get foreclosed on (happened to my great-great-aunt Mamie).

It's great until you want to leave but you can't. It's great until you want to do something else with your life but you can't. It's great. Until. It's. Not.

I won't lie to you and say nobody was ever happy that way. Plenty of women have been, and part of feminism is acknowledging that women have the right to choose that sort of life if they want to.

But flinging yourself into it wholeheartedly with no sort of safety net whatsoever, especially in a period where it's EXTREMELY easy for him to leave you- as it should be; no-fault divorce saves lives -is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

Have your own means of support. Keep your own bank account; we fought hard enough to be allowed them. Gods willing, you never need that safety net, but too many women have suffered because they needed it and it wasn't there.

#history #women's history #pregnancy mention #my mother (born 1953) drilled this into me from an early age: have a safety net. have a skill and keep it up to date. have your own money #NEVER join bank accounts. keep a hold on your assets. #well and good to be a stay-at-home wife and mother- I know other lesbians who want that even! #but if your partner is your sole financial support...you're courting danger IMO