So women are 'sponging' off their husbands

[Spannah01]

Sorry for the dm link, but this article bought out the rage in me.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2321531/We-fought-equality-So-greedy-wives-sponge-ex-husbands.html

[TheOrchardKeeper]

Well I'm studying for my degree & not letting DP move in until we can be on equal footing....so suck on that DailyFail

[TheOrchardKeeper]

(and even if you're a SAHM etc...you both chose the set up. Not just him. So you both got a choice, which is still equality in my eyes)

[Mondrian]

I'd imagine that is the case with DM readers but hey apparently everyone on here is a Guardian reader.

[OrbisNonSufficit]

It's a bit disingenuous. "We fought for equality"... Yes, we'll we don't HAVE it yet, men still earn more and they still run the world. When a woman is running F1, I will expect her divorced husband to get £750m in the settlement.

[LineRunner]

Equality? Where's that then?

[freta]

Please explain OP. exactly what brought out the rage?

[namechangedatm]

I think living off your man's earnings is giving him too much power and from my experience makes some men resentful of the wife, especially if she doesn't put out.

I prefer having my own money and being the higher earner. A wife living off her husbands earnings is in a vulnerable position imo, not one I'd want to be in. You see it all the time on here, women who can't leave their asshole husband as they depend on him financially.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Most of industry and commerce was set up like this - for every working man to have a female house-servant to do all the domestic work and care for the children (and the elderly relatives as well). At present, if a family has more than two small children, the cost of childcare is so prohibitive that it makes it pretty much essential to have one parent or family member at home looking after those small children. Looking after small children is work.

[blueshoes]

The multi-million pound settlements mentioned in the article will become more of a rarity in the UK since the high profile Radmacher heiress case which opened the door to English courts upholding prenuptial agreements.

[IsBella]

No one notices the sponging off women's free labour that men do.

They are able to go out to work, progress their careers and not bother about the domestic arrangements, because usually then mothers of their children are doing it for free, even when they too work in the cash economy.

And then they get to define the freeloading they're doing as women sponging off them, in a classic reversal.

Patriarchy, doncha love it.

[GoblinGranny]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2321531/We-fought-equality-So-greedy-wives-sponge-ex-husbands.html

[SolidGoldBrass]

Exactly. The post-industrial economy functions on women's unpaid labour. Not just the housekeeping for their individual male owners, and all the responsibility of childcare, but looking after the elderly and the sick, is all supposed to be women's unpaid responsibillity. That's what 'community care' generally means. Unpaid work by women that prevents them from earning actual wages.

[IsBella]

Yep. "The family" looking after elderly relatives, means women in the family with a few noble exceptions.

[LuisGarcia]

I shamelessly sponge off MrsG by raising our children.

[Sunnywithshowers]

Fuck that. My BIL used to work away a lot and say 'she's spending my money' about my DSis. I used to want to scream 'she's raising YOUR children'... Luckily he's grown up since :)

[SolidGoldBrass]

I wonder, just a little tiny bit, about all these women who 'just weren't' ever going to be competent self-supporting wealthy famous but somehow their husbands were. If you hadn't accepted the role of Hubby's domestic appliance, he might never have risen as far as senior paperclip allocation manager. But you might have become a brain surgeon.