There’s an interesting point/counter point opinion duel at Forbes.com about whether career women make bad wives.

My first thought is to quote Benjamin Disreali “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

See the problem with statistics is that they aren’t universally appliable.  (This is a point that Mrs. Corcoran doesn’t seem to understand in her use of herself as an anecdotal rebutal, but I digress.)  What does it mean when you hear that career women are 30% (or whatever) more likely to get divorced?  Would it be better to marry a woman you don’t like as much instead while your heart is still with the career woman?  See, we live in a world of specifics, not statistics.

Additionally, often what happens when gathering statistics is that really you’re seeing a different trend, one that is a only incidentally related to the supposed trend.  To some degree Mr. Noer admits this in his couple paragraphs where he looks for an underlying cause.  Shouldn’t it be the underlying cause that we should be trying to avoid not just career women?

If I had to pick the appropriate attribute that a man should be looking for in a potential wife in regards to this topic it would be to make sure you find a woman who puts her marriage solidly above her career in her priority list.  And before anyone calls me a male pig, I would tell the same thing to a woman for the attributes she should be looking for in a husband.

See, the real problem that can occur with duel working families is that the priorities get out of whack.  The career becomes a non-negotiable aspect of their life even when it means the end of their marriage.  When the time comes for a tough decision to be made (and that time WILL come, it’s just a matter of time), what will sink a marriage is when one or both of the individuals is unwilling to put the marriage first.  Often you hear stories of both individuals being exhausted and never having time for one another, particularly now that kids are part of the picture, and it’s tearing their marriage apart.  OK, fine, why in God’s name don’t you do something about it?  Shouldn’t one of you take some time off work?  Can’t afford it?  Well, change your lifestyle so that you can.

See, in the end, marriage is all about commitment and being willing to adapt and make the changes necessary to succeed.  Anyone who isn’t willing to make those changes, they’re not going to be very happy in a marriage.

Oh, and before I close, raising kids is difficult enough with a parent at home.  Anyone who expects to do have children better be ready to have one of the two parents at home at some point or deal with the significant downsides of not doing so.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 7:14 am and is filed under Catholicism, Catholicism - Morals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.