Egalitarian Finances

I’ve been reading The Feminine Mistake, a book by Leslie Bennetts that’s been getting a lot of press lately. I didn’t want to hate the book without reading it, so I checked it out of the library.

I was surprised. She makes a lot of good points (and more about those tomorrow), although they’re often embedded in inflammatory rhetoric. Her basic idea is that women need to work in order to find personal fulfillment and ensure they can take care of themselves financially.

The chapter that drove me insane was “It’s the Money, Honey.” The chapter starts with an anecdote about two Harvard MBAs who married. After 3 kids, the wife quit her job to stay home, and her husband took control of all the finances; their power issues are now so severe that the marriage is “poisoned with rage.” Bennetts notes, “The dependent wives I interviewed typically judge the wisdom of their choice in terms of how the husband handles his power, rather than questioning the wisdom of giving him that power in the first place.”

To begin with, I take umbrage at the term “dependent wives” to describe stay-at-home moms; at least from my point of view, “interdependent” is a much better word. For another thing, in choosing to stay home and let my husband out-earn me, I have not given him all the power. We share it, just as we always have.

Maybe it’s hard for a baby-boomer feminist to understand that, for couples with a deep commitment to equality, an income discrepancy does not necessarily entail a power discrepancy. Bennetts quotes a woman who says, “I’ve never felt like it was his money; it’s our money. We have a partnership.” The author then comments snidely, “When such marriages are working well, wives can easily convince themselves that control isn’t even an issue.”

The way Bennetts sets up her argument, women who stay home with their kids can’t win; if they complain about their relationship she takes them at face value, but if they say they’re happy and feel equal, then they’re deluded. Bennetts sneers at “the current vogue among stay-at-home wives for pretending they have equal power in their marriages.” I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I am flabbergasted that a woman who calls herself a feminist would have the gall to tell me that she knows better than I do whether I have equal power in my own marriage.

When I was pregnant and thinking about quitting my job, I dreamed up The Contract. If I stayed home, I wanted to spell out that I was still fully entitled to family money and to regular contributions to a retirement account. I wanted to spell out that, while child care and housework would be primarily my job during the weekdays, we would both share those duties evenings and weekends. “So you’ll think of yourself as working for Tom?” a friend asked me. “No,” I replied. “I’ll be working for The Team.”

I never did get around to writing up the contract and having us both sign it—but in the past three years, I’ve lived it. At the beginning, it took some negotiation for us to adjust to our new roles. In the first weeks, I noticed that on weekdays, Tom was assuming that I’d care for the baby from 6 AM on, while he got ready for work. I insisted that, if I was going to watch the baby while he got ready for the day, he would then have to do the same for me. It was only a small matter, but it was important to me that my needs were going to be met and respected.

Tom and I do think of ourselves as a team; cheesy as it may be, we tell each other, “Thanks for all the work you do for the team.” The fact that last year Tom earned nearly 6 times the money I made from my freelance work doesn’t affect that. The fact that I do more daily housework and make dinner nearly every night doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect me. We’ve worked hard and negotiated our way through an equal relationship. We contribute in different ways, but we try to honor each other’s contributions.

A friend, in congratulating me on losing weight, said, “Now you’ll have to tell Tom to let you buy some new clothes.” That kind of thinking makes no sense to me. I manage the monthly budget; there’s either money for new clothes or there’s not, and wheedling and cajoling my husband won’t make one bit of difference.

I know that our relationship may be different than many people’s, and perhaps in some marriages the women do need to earn money to have more power. I have seen women who think they have to hide their spending, or trick their husbands into giving up money. But I know from personal experience that you can deliberately forge a more open, honest, and transparent financial system. This year, Tom did the taxes; last year, I did the first draft. I keep tabs on ever dollar we spend. Last night, as I was entering items onto our spreadsheet, I wondered how I could possibly be financially oppressed when my husband submits to me receipts noting he paid $1.59 for a pair of shoelaces.

When we got married, we had joint accounts from the very beginning. Since I earned double what my grad student husband made, I briefly considered holding on to “my” money—but even then I could see that it would be a very poor long-term strategy. Now we each have a fixed—and equal—monthly amount to spend on whatever we want. If I buy fancy coffee at Starbucks and he buys Dr. Who DVDs, we don’t care. The only accounts we keep separate are retirement accounts. While I know that financially it would make sense to contribute more money to Tom’s more favorable 401(k), for me it’s symbolic to put a small amount in my own account, even if (we hope) the money will all belong to both of us in the end.

I like the fact that the money is ours. I like the fact that we discuss our purchases with each other and create a budget that enables us to live our values. And if anyone tries to tell me I need to make more money in order to be equal to my husband—well, you’ll have to excuse me if I have a hard time taking her seriously.