Posted on 10/10/2008 12:18:48 PM PDT by reaganaut1
[W]ives don't need income to wield power in their marriages. And mothers don't have much reason to fear losing power if they're not bringing home an equal share of the bacon. A Pew Research Center study released a couple of weeks ago found that when it comes to decision making in the home, wives in a majority of cases either rule the roost or share power equally with their husbands, regardless of how much money the women earn.
...
[C]onsumer research shows that with the exception of what car to buy and when to buy it, men rarely claim strong enough feelings to override their wives.
"Across all decision-making realms, it tilts to the woman," noted Rich Morin, the Pew study's lead author. "I was surprised by the percentage of men who made none of the decisions in any of the areas. A significant percentage were just bystanders." Not surprisingly, one reason men say they are willing to acquiesce in their spouses' wishes is that their wives usually have greater knowledge of the day-to-day activities and needs of the home than they do. They trust their wives' choices the way they would any specialist's. But what is rather unexpected is the deeper (and much sweeter) reason men have for giving in to their wives: They want them to be happy, or at least they don't want to be responsible for making them unhappy.
The general consensus of sociologists is that, whereas a woman's marital satisfaction is dependent on a combination of economic, emotional and psychological realities, a man's marital satisfaction is most determined by one factor: how happy his wife is. When she is happy, he is.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Oct 26th is our wedding anniversary as well as Bosses Day...
I usually get my wife two presents. :)
I’m the head of my house and my wife lets me say so too!
Darn good thing the date is on the inside of the wedding ring.
I could post a picture of the one little thing that gives ladies all the power but I'd be banned for life.
This is news? Sheesh...she doesn’t wear my eagles, but otherwise, I’m just fine with her choices (because the vast majority of the time and on the majority of topics, it matters more to her than it does to me).
Colonel, USAFR
That’s exactly the way it works in my home. My husband chooses the car, I choose almost everything else (well, I buy him a bag of chips once in a while, LOL). Seriously, he doesn’t really care about the other decisions, and he knows I would never choose anything he hated or felt strongly about. But he never does feel too strongly about household decisions, in the domestic realm, as long as I don’t buy dinky foo-foo furniture that he’d be uncomfortable in.
My hubby goes to work and either weed wacks or mows.
I do everything else and homeschool my kids.
All decisions in the house are on Dad’s final word. But most of them I make myself.
He is King of the Castle and should not have to worry about the little things.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Whose hand is rocking YOUR child’s cradle?
Working mom's too. If I've learned one thing in almost 25 years of marriage it's this: If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody going to be happy.
In my household my wife makes all the small decisions, and I make all the big decisions.
She decides where we will live, what kind of house we are going to have, what kinds of cars we are going to drive, where our kids will go to school, where we will vacation, and how much money we each need to make to afford all this. You know, the small decisions.
I make all the big decisions, like my family’s position on world peace, and whether we will send an emmisary to the Vatican, and whether the Kyoto Protocol is something we can sign up to. The big decisions are all mine.
ping
“A man’s marital satisfaction is most determined by one factor: how happy his wife is. When she is happy, he is.”
You have that right!
My husband’s only concerns about purchases for the kids decisions: how much does it cost?
Only exception is medical - when the questions are “how much did it cost?” and “Do you have to go back?” and “how the *$%&* did that happen to you, kid?”
Same here.
I let my wife handle all the day-to-day decisions. I save my clout for the big stuff. :)
My DH tends to agree with Bill Cosby. He’s seen the bosses job, and he doesn’t want it. And we all know that if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy....
Sheesh. As if this is breaking news. These people need to get out more.
You obviously have a true sense of your worth!
Raucous applause for you.
It’s been statistically shown that men’s incomes go way up after they’re married, because they have the support structure at home to take care of the day to day stuff while they advance their careers.
Stay at home moms may not “bring in” the income, but they sure enhance it, and they control more of the spending decisions than the man does. I’d say I decide less than 10% of our budget.
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