“I thought marriage would make my life easier,” said my then-colleague, many years ago, in a different country, and at an awful workplace.
She had met her husband on vacation, spent a lot of money on his immigration, and helped him to get a job. But after he did, his workmates teased him over his wife’s weight, and he blamed her. He spent more than he earned, and he stayed out all night. My colleague’s heart was breaking.
Women fear poverty. I don’t mean having to live in a small flat for years, or buying secondhand clothing, or going to a restaurant maybe once a year. I mean abject poverty, like homelessness, or relying on a food bank, or living in a dangerous council estate (public housing) or in a cardboard box. I mean not having enough money to feed the children, or to wash their clothing, or to buy them new shoes. I mean working at dehumanising or mind-numbing jobs that never quite pay enough. I mean being too frightened to open credit card bills.
I share this fear even though I grew up in comfortable houses on safe streets in pleasant neighbourhoods. I’ve seen bag ladies, I’ve worked with the suddenly-poor, and I’ve even helped the formerly-middle-class bear the humiliation of the food bank. Moreover, in my twenties I was late with a rent cheque or two and with minimum payments on my loathsome credit card. And I have even been homeless, living temporarily in a borrowed room with a cancer-stricken husband; I would work in the hallway outside as the internet signal was stronger there.
We were not down-and-out; in fact, we had saved a deposit for a flat and had a bridging loan from the Bank of Mum and Dad.* We both continued our full-time jobs, even though Mr McLean was undergoing radiotherapy at the time. As stressful as that summer was, we had each other’s back. When it comes to matters of life and death, housing and employment, we do not quit.
Women want to marry the kind of man who does not quit in such matters.
Now, I am not setting myself up as any kind of financial expert. In fact, I may buy myself a poster of Leo the Late Bloomer once this post is done. But one thing I can tell you is that the woman who has felt the icy hand of poverty on her shoulder thinks a lot about how to avoid it ever after. And this is why the sensible woman considers what the acceptance of the courtship of a man will do to her financial future. This is not gold-digging. It is sanity.
Gentlemen, be sensible. If your dream is to be an old-fashioned provider, the sole breadwinner, then you owe it to your future wife and family to learn a lucrative trade or follow a profession that will help you all to flourish. If, however, you know you cannot (or cannot yet) shoulder the financial responsibilities of a family alone, then you must confess this to whichever young lady has caught your fancy, perhaps on the seventh date. If your dream is to write a doctoral thesis on Sixteenth Century Liturgical Lace, she needs to know that.**
The great majority of women nowadays do not assume that we will never have to work. Many of us graduate with student loans that we expect to pay off ourselves. Moreover, many of us so enjoy our professions that we would not want to give them up without good cause even if our husbands made six-figure annual salaries. And we are perfectly happy to contribute to the household income as long as that does not mean having to work “the second shift” of homemaking and childcare alone.
What does not make us happy is feeling financially precarious. My Scots-Canadian grandfather, like his father before him, handed his wife his unopened pay packets. This was the traditional Scottish way. The wife was expected to give her husband some money for the pub his personal expenses, put some in the bank, and use the rest for housekeeping. She knew exactly how much her husband made, how much they saved, and how much they spent. She was also the beneficiary of her husband’s work pension plan and/or life insurance policy. Thus, as long as her husband stayed in work (and behaved himself), the 20th century Scots-Canadian housewife could feel financially secure.
The young Traditional Catholic man has probably not given any thought to life insurance. However, this is indeed something he will want to think about when he marries, or when his first child is born, or when/if he and his wife take out a mortgage. On one of those occasions, he should consider that he might join the 2%-3% of married men in Britain who die before the age of 50. FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) bloggers have pointed out, however, that a family doesn’t need to insure its primary breadwinner once it has already amassed enough investment income. (A subject for another post.) All newly employed adults should also find out about pension plans and “Death in Service” payouts.
The great majority of Catholic women also want what is best for our children, so if we know their financial well-being is guaranteed by their father’s salary, then of course mothers stay at home with them. However, we have to know. Not telling women anything about the family finances is not traditional; today it is considered a form of domestic abuse.
I’ve already discussed working-class women; even upper-class women were expected to know SOMETHING about money, even if their husbands and fathers generally managed everything for them. And, indeed, before women in Britain were granted their own right to property, the menfolk of upper-class women hashed out financial arrangements with their affianced husbands. These were called marriage settlements, and they ensured that married women and their children were provided for in every contingency.
If a young Catholic man is worried that the woman now his girlfriend is a financial flibbertigibbet who will eventually divorce him and “take everything,” then he should break up with her at once. Otherwise, during their courtship, a couple should talk about their financial future. It may be an extremely embarrassing conversation, but it has to be had. Indeed, if the young Catholic man envisions a very untraditional life, like living off his as-yet-unlaunched YouTube channel and travelling around the world, he and his future wife strapping any babies born along the road to their backs, his love interest needs to know that.
**Upon hearing the happy news that yet another of our Millennial friends had purchased a flat, I rejoiced aloud that it is not in fact true that members of the Younger Generation can no longer buy their own home. However, I was swiftly informed that who can or cannot buy is largely determined by their parents’ circumstances. Over half of first-time buyers in the UK have received family assistance, usually from the Bank of Mum and Dad, for Mum and Dad first began their financial journey in a rather happier time. This factoid from the House of Lords Library is rather eye-opening:
Average property prices in England had risen by 173% (after adjusting for inflation) and 253% in London since 1997. This compared with an increase in real incomes of 25- to 34-year-olds of 19% across the same period. Between 2007 and 2017, the [Institute for Fiscal Studies] said real house prices had not risen across most of the country. However, they had increased by 30% in London, 8% in the South East and 10% in the East of England. The IFS said rising house prices had benefited older generations at the expense of younger ones and had increased intergenerational inequalities.
** I casually asked Mr McLean yesterday when lace was added to the liturgy. After suggesting the 18th century, my cherished spouse actually looked it up and read his findings aloud. My fear that Traditional Catholic men might try to build a career on their interest in liturgical minutiae is not entirely unfounded. May I suggest it as a retirement project?
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