Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 07/9/2009

Apparently, marrying for money is okay…and feminist!

 

I feel like I’m back in my modern world history class writing a paper about how the decline of the economy of some society led to their moral and ethical corruption. Except it’s real life. And it’s our society. Sad. 

Jessica Wakeman wrote an article on CNN making an argument for marrying for money. And is touting it as feminist. In-ter-esting. While I kind of appreciate her no bullshit approach to this topic, especially in this economic climate, I find her argument flawed. Surprise, surprise. 

What I think is valuable about her argument (her words in bold):

“Maybe this isn’t ‘feminist,’ but logically, I need to marry a guy who makes more money than I do — preferably a lot more money than I do — for us to be able to afford what I want and I hope he will want, too. An apartment big enough for kids, prenatal care, doctors appointments, birthday presents, vacations, summer camp, college, their own car, all that stuff.”

It is true that there are things in life that cost a lot of money. And having money to be able to support all these things is nice, if not completely essential. She’s just being honest – when you’re used to a lifestyle, you’re used to a lifestyle. And its true, us feminists are always talking about discrimination in pay in the workforce (women make about 80 cents per every man’s dollar) – so while we’re still trying to bridge that gap, shouldn’t we make sure our partner can bridge it for us in the short? 

Meh. It needs to be said: men don’t usually have that option. Of course, of course, there are the exceptions, men can be gold diggers too, but not usually. But there is no way to get around it: marrying for money is golddigging. Marrying for love is marrying.

I also think there’s something essentially classist about this argument. A privileged white girl wants to maintain her privileges…so she’ll just marry a privileged white man. It’s just not like that for everybody. 

“I also would immediately disqualify entering into a sharing-bank-accounts relationship with a man who proved to be irresponsible with his cash. College loan debt is fine (I’ve got it) and a reasonable balance on the credit card debt is understandable (I’ve got that, too). But I couldn’t wrap up my life or my children’s lives around someone who spent or managed money irresponsibly. I don’t want to deal with that drama ’cause I know we’d just argue about it all the time.”

I agree that taking on a relationship with someone severely in debt is probably a bad idea, or at least a rocky road. Finance is not something to be ignored in relationships. So I guess her argument isn’t about “providing” and gender roles – it’s about being attracted to money in general. 

The flaws: I understand that economic stability is attractive – I’m only 16 but I know I wouldn’t want to enter a relationship where I knew money would always be something I had to worry about. And I get where she’s coming from with this feminist angle: by marrying men with money, we are actually empowering ourselves to achieve everything we couldn’t on our own salaries. Okay.

But I’m sorry, maybe it’s the idealist feminist in me, but I think women should be motivated to bridge the wage gap, not to give in to stereotypes like this and just conveniently excuse it as being “feminist” in some way. Of course that’s easy for me to say — I haven’t had to live an adult life yet. But am I so wrong to think there are more important factors in a marriage than money? Does love really not exist at all anymore?

Bottom line: I get her point. But in the end I think she comes off as the stereotypical “heartless” feminist, even though she may be trying to be logical. Money isn’t everything.

Rate this post

Read other posts about: marrying for money