I think this is an important insight, even though it is a bit unfair to put the blame on the woman like that. The problem is rather the concept of the nuclear family and the expectations it puts both on the women and the man and all the assumed to be necessary lifestyle that comes with it. Saint Andrewism made a video about more or less this recently.
So yes, due to sharing expenses and some tax incentives for nuclear families it does in theory appear to be cheaper to live together like that, but in reality people have plenty of other forms of living, often cheaper and more fulfilling (or not).
However women do seem to be still more invested in the model of the nuclear family as it is sold to them as the model that gives them the most autonomy as a stay at home mom. This is a myth, but one hard to break, and for someone quite opposed to the concept this makes it very hard to engage in romantic relationships.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
Honestly, I'd argue the opposite. My wife is a stay at home wife and a stay at home mom because it is her will to do so, but she exercises her will in defiance of overwhelming societal pressure to go out and get a career even though that isn't what she wants to do with her life. If she's talking to people she's never going to meet again, she just lies or changes the subject when it comes up because it's so uncomfortable hearing the judgmental "oh... you don't work."
Unfortunately, postmodern culture mistakes freedom to choose to do a thing with an obligation to do a thing, and the freedom not to do a thing with an obligation not to do a thing. The point of freedom should be that we each have the autonomy to follow our own chosen path willfully, rather than an obligation to follow whatever path has been prescribed for us. To switch one prescribed path for another isn't freedom, it's leading you out of one cage and into another.
poVoq@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
I don't think what I wrote and what your wrote is the opposite at all, in fact your first paragraph confirms exactly what I wrote in my last, no?
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
Given that you're suggesting that society pushes for my wife's choice, I don't think so. If she felt pressure to be a stay at home mom we'd be saying the same thing, but instead she feels pressure to work.
poVoq@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
You misunderstood ;) I said that the traditional idea of the stay at home mom in a nuclear family is being sold by society as giving more freedom to women (compared to for example a multi-generational family) and apparently this myth worked very well on your wife.