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Are You Getting Your Fair Share?

© Jane James

As you planned your wedding, you probably didn't think too much about what you were going to get from your future spouse as part of a "marriage agreement." You were probably, instead, thinking about the romance, the honeymoon, how great your husband was going to look in his tuxedo, or your wife was going to look in her wedding dress. Maybe you were looking forward to naming future children, taking family vacations, making a comfortable home to share, and growing old together.

You probably weren't thinking about who was going to wash the dishes, who was going to pick up the shirts at the dry cleaners, whether you would be appreciated for bringing in a second income. It probably did not occur to you that you might feel you were giving more than you were receiving. Or perhaps you never wondered whether you might feel you were not contributing enough.

Marriage is largely about exchange. It's about enhancing the survival of both the husband and the wife.

That may sound unromantic, and certainly no truly loving marriage would look like a cold-blooded business relationship. However, in a strong marriage, both partners give to the other, and each is better off because of the other.

Sometimes, one partner will not realize exactly how much the other is doing, and then feel the exchange is unfair. This could lead to resentment, I suppose.

However, it feels much, much worse to not give enough.

Perhaps the exchange in marriage seemed simpler before the "women's lib" movement. When women ran the household, raised the children, did the cooking and cleaning (or, in wealthier circumstances, ran the household staff that did these things), the exchange was very obvious. And women were respected for it.

When the Wild West was being won, men were so aware of the need for women, that they advertised for them in newspapers back East. Businesses were created that matched women to men and sent them out West to meet their new husbands.

The need for a "housewife" was evident. Men needed someone to spend hours preparing their meals from scratch in rudimentary kitchens. They needed someone to sew their clothing. They needed someone to make a comfortable home for them. And they needed someone to love.

In the "old days" this arrangement was often much simpler than it is now. The wife usually didn't "have a job" but she worked very hard at home. And the husband didn't wash the dishes. He just didn't ever do that. ("That's what I have a wife for!")