What Do Women Want?

I ran across an interesting article examining the issue of what makes wives happy? Here's some of what they had to say:

Freud confessed that his “thirty years of research into the feminine soul” left him unable to answer one great question: “What does a woman want?” Modern feminists have been arguing for decades over a variation of it: What should a woman want?

This week, two sociologists from the University of Virginia are publishing the answer to a more manageable variation. Drawing on one of the most thorough surveys ever done of married couples, they’ve crunched the numbers and asked: What makes a woman happy with her marriage?

... it turns out that an equal division of labor didn’t make husbands more affectionate or wives more fulfilled. The wives working outside the home reported less satisfaction with their husbands and their marriages than did the stay-at-home wives. And among those with outside jobs, the happiest wives, regardless of the family’s overall income, were the ones whose husbands brought in at least two-thirds of the money.

These results, of course, are just averages. Plenty of people are happy with different arrangements...

The happiest wives in their study were the ones who said that housework was divided fairly between them and their husbands. But those same happy wives also did more of the work at home while their husbands did more work outside home. Nock doesn’t claim to have divined the feminine soul, but he does have one answer to Freud’s question.

“A woman wants equity,” he says. “That’s not necessarily the same as equality.”

Interesting, but is this surprising? I have a number of female friends and family members who have become stay-at-home moms after having their first baby and for the most part, I've never seen them happier or more fulfilled. As I talk to many young women here at GMU, it seems many of them are planning to take time off of work to spend with their kids, when they have them. Many women from elite colleges are also choosing traditional paths to motherhood, even those with advanced degrees.

Is there tacit knowledge contained in traditional marital arrangements and roles that we don't fully understand? For the average couple, does this type of family arrangement lead to more happiness and satisfaction out of life? That doesn't mean it is the best for all families, only that it is a successful arrangement for many.

The more I learn about economics, the more impressed I am by Hayek's insights into how culture and tradition contains unarticulated knowledge that helps people survive and thrive. Despite our best intentions, we don't always know how meddling with our institutions (such as marriage, family, etc.) may impact our society in the long-run. Even the best laid plans often have unintended consequences.

I think the unprecedented opportunities available to women today are a tremendous blessing to our society and are something to be protected and cherished. However, I also believe that wives should be able to make choices with their husbands about how to divide up responsibilities in their marriage. The choices they make together for how to organize their lives should be celebrated in its many forms -- even when it takes on a traditional form. The freedoms women now enjoy include the right to decide to stay home and raise a family as a full-time mom. This choice should be celebrated and applauded when it is made. As should any other choices made by moms and dads to provide for their families in the ways they think are best.

To all you moms out there and dads who work together with them to love and support your families, thank you for all you do! I want to especially say an extra big thank you to my own parents. My mom and dad worked together as a team to provide for our family when I was growing up. Mom stayed home with my brother and I and dad worked at the office to earn the finances to keep the family going. They made an awesome team and both made a lot of sacrifices in their own lives for the sake of my brother and I. They set a tremendous example for me to follow. Mom and Dad, I love you both! Thank you so much for all you did and are still doing!

Follow-up:

• Here are some thoughts on how economic changes have shaped changes in family structure.
  
• Some commentary on how delayed marriages and declining fertility are leading to profound demographic changes around the world.
  
• Statistics indicating that marriage appears to boost the happiness of both men and women significantly, while working status has a much larger impact on men.
  
• Linda Hirshman (a visiting professor at Brandeis University) weighs in on "choice feminism" and ABC News tells of the "Mommy Wars".

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not include Walter Williams' take on all of this...

Questions:

• What do you think is the best form of family?
  
• Do gender roles help or hurt family dynamics?
  
• What is the nature of motherhood and fatherhood?
  
• How interchangeable are the roles of each?
  
• What is unique about each?
  
• What impact does it have on children for moms to stay home or for moms to work?
  
• How about dads staying home or working?
  
• Do you believe that staying home with the family tends to make women more or less happy?
  
• Why do traditional gender roles tend to persist?
  
• Do you believe traditional lifestyles tend to make families better or worse off?
  
• Is this due to something inborn in our natures as men and women or is it the result of culture?
• If we stop focusing on individual fulfillment and equality, and instead focus on the good of the family, do our perceptions of these issues change?Are these in conflict with one another? Which perspective is best?
• If marriage is such a great happiness booster, why is there such a strong trend for people to delay getting married?