Does the MRS degree still exist?

[YPestis]

As any FJerite knows, fundies push their daughters to focus on marriage and finding the Right Guy within the construct of some contrived courtship process (blech). However, as much as we pride ourselves on the opportunities available to women today, it's not that long ago that the ideal was to snatch a high paying husband. I went to a top notch college less than a decade ago, and even there, I met people who were biding their time and looking for a husband. How about the posters here? Anyone with that experience?

I knew girls who were English majors, photography majors, arts majors who came from upper middle class homes, who had the expectations that they would continue that comfortable lifestyle despite selecting low paying careers. It was an interesting phenomenon that I didn't see replicated as much with guys, who were more likely to be finance and engineering majors. It seems gender roles are still firmly in place, even among young, liberals in an elite institution.

I even knew girls who openly admitted to expecting that their husbands will be the primary breadwinners. It makes me wonder how far we've really com. Even among smart women, we still retain traditional attitude. I don't think it's bad to want the traditional model, but it surprises me how common this attitude is among young people. Do others have similar experiences? What did the smart, young women of your day say about their career goals vs. marriage aspirations? Also, just to make amuse myself, how did the young ladies' lives turn out compared to what they hoped for? For me and my girl friends, I think only one of us is currently living the life that we envisioned a decade ago.

[rock_girl]

I used to think that way. I just couldn't imagine myself out there earning a 'real' salary, especially not when it was compared to my bf's... I once calculated that by the time I finally stopped faffing about and finished uni, my income would a pittance compared to his and more play money than anything. I also couldn't really see myself with anyone who earned much less than this. Old fashioned, I know.

Dream job? Oh... something in the arts. Some low paying career, possibly admin work in a theatre company.

I'm not sure what's changed, but I've gone from someone who couldn't see herself moving from the city, and who spent her days playing with sparkly jewellery to someone who is unbelievably cheap and making plans to buy a house 90 minutes from 'the only desirable part of Sydney' (my words, my exact words). I'm also going to be looking for jobs in a high paying, but not especially appealing industry in order to pay off my little shack quickly and find myself some financial security.

My backup plan, btw, assuming I couldn't stomach the nutty ex enough to marry him, or find someone with a similar income, was to be dependant on family handouts for the next 20 or so years and then inherit.

Why was I so lazy? Hard to say. Maybe a little bit of depression, apathy, reluctance to leave my comfort zone. It's just easy to go along with the status quo. I'm also 'ill' and love to use that as an excuse to get out of doing difficult things. Looking at Ann Romney I can see my future if I don't set about changing, something that is making me increasingly uncomfortable with my past choices.

[wendy-sparkles]

I don't know anyone with that attitude, beyond the odd joke about marrying rich to support a shoe habit. Pretty much all of the boys in my social circle are doing the same low wage potential BAs as the girls. The only one of us who is particularly into her dude supporting her grew up in a family with financial difficulties in a very well off area, and sort of has a chip on her shoulder because of it - she expects similar things from female friends she perceives as well off, not just her boyfriend.

[Sola]

I come from an area that traditionally relied upon heavy industry, factories and mines. When I left senior school there was a lot of underachievement going on which was not seen as a problem as school leavers would leave school at 16 and go straight into blue collar job. Among my peers few of us went to college and fewer still went to university. Back then many of the girls in my class left school on the Friday and started work at the clothing factories on Monday morning. The boys went straight into the steel works or mines. For the girls they stayed at their factory jobs until they got married and then they left to have their first baby. That was twenty-seven years ago.

Industry around here has been decimated (actually that's an understatement). Where there were around 15 clothing factories in my town there is now one. There is one mine left out of dozens and the steel works is down to one site rather than the five it had spread across town. There just isn't the jobs any more. But, there is still the underachievement. Whereas before the girls left school, worked in a factory until marriage and then became a SAHM, now invariably they are pregnant within a year or two of finishing at school. We have problems here with boys not finding work and they end up in trouble with the police. The girls end up as single parents and the cycle starts again.

When the industry ended nothing was put in its place. Very little effort was made to increase educational attainment. There's a slightly higher percentage of teens who go on to college and university, but it isn't high enough.

I was one of the lucky ones in that 'got out'. I went to college and university, but even then it's surprising how many were just biding their time until a husband came along. I think now, for better educated teens, it is changing. But for many working class teens they still have poor prospects.

[themadapple]

I suspected that a few women at my university were there for their MRS, but they were certainly in the minority.

Still, my old school Southern Baptist Grandma was incredibly pleased that I went to college, in part so that I might find a suitable Christian gentleman who could support me in ideal upper middle class comfort. During one of our phone calls, she asked me if I was seeing anybody seriously. When I said no, she sort of sighed and said "well, maybe after your education." I haven't told her that I'm an atheist for the sake of her nerves. And she's still waiting on that Christian doctor :lol:

[skrmom]

Hyles-Anderson College has a degree for women in 'Marriage and Motherhood' where courses include:Drapery Sewing and Using a Slow Cooker. I don't have any girls, but if I did I'd much rather she get a degree in Software Engineering.

[Arete]

I didn't know any woman in college going for an MRS, but then again I did not know anyone from a wealthy background bidding there time to become Doctor X, Lawyer Y, or HedgeFund Manager Z's wife. To another of the OPs points, most of the women I knew/know expect husband material to make a good living. We were not raised to think a woman being the sole breadwinner within a marriage was as good a choice as any other. It is an uphill battle in my circle to sell husband as Mr. Mom while the wife works, which is a shame because sometimes men really do make better "mommies" and some women like working more than child rearing.

[alysee]

It does in my town where more men are getting out of the faith than women. That's how they spin it to their fathers, I'll find a Husband, if you let me go to college, and these girls are looking but unfortunately the desperation can be smelled a mile a way! Just for the record it hasn't worked...

[Ava]

At my own school all of the women that I knew fully expected to start their careers when they graduated, myself included. Not working for a living was just something that simply didn't occur to me as a viable option. But my school was best known as an engineering school and was very 'prepare for your future job' oriented, which probably had a lot to do with it.

I had a friend who went to an Ivy League school nearby. She'd come from an upper middle class background and was intending to go to medical school because that's what her parents - who were going to pay for every year of schooling - wanted her to do. She had a boyfriend who, because he was in a certain major, she insisted was going to graduate making $100k+ per year, and go up from there. She once wrote a blog post pondering whether or not, if she married one of the 'guaranteed to be rich' students at her school, she could stomach being a stay at home mother like she would be expected to be in that situation. I found that a very bizarre thing for her to say, but I'd stopped speaking to her at that point so I never got a chance to ask her to clarify. She was going to be a doctor because that's what her parents wanted, but she said several times that she'd rather switch her major to writing and go off and be a 'starving artist' when she graduated - she insisted that as long as she got to be a creative, free spirit she didn't care about the money. i don't think she had any concept of what it was like to have to worry about how to afford things. I have no idea what she's up to now but I would imagine she's still in school.

I used to post on a college admissions board and there were a lot of kids there, both male and female, who had come from more affluent backgrounds and fully expected to carry on in exactly the same way throughout college and immediately after graduation. I remember there was one poster who insisted that he needed to make some ridiculous number, $250k or something, after graduation to live the only lifestyle that would make him happy, which included living in an apartment in Manhattan. I don't remember seeing anyone that said they intended to achieve this by marriage, but I remember people (all male, I believe) saying that at least women had the option of achieving a high income by marriage, whereas they had to go out and do the grunt work to earn it, with occasional rants about how terribly unfair that was. I doubt any of them would have been ok with being a house husband to a high-earning wife, though.

[browngrl]

I did not think this was a real thing -but I was wrong. I first noticed it in med school. At all of our dances/social gatherings there were a coterie of young women who seemed to be there just to meet the men. You could easily distinguish them from the female med students - we all looked tired and we talked with women and men - those women looked fabulous and only spent time with the men. I did not notice any men doing a similar thing for the female med students. Later when I was an intern/resident (last in the late 90's) I noticed a similar phenomena. Lots of women seemed flock around the male residents/interns. Even today i see a surprising number of women who are secretly or openly looking for a man to look after them.

To me the most interesting thing was: it turns out I was one of those women who secretly was hoping for a man to look after me. When I first got married my husband was making substantially less than me (he had just changed careers - now we make about the same amount). This bothered me to a surprising degree. It turned out I had never thought of myself as the main breadwinner of the family. My husband had never thought of himself as NOT the main breadwinner. So we both had some adjusting to do.

[MarsGirl]

You know, I was an English major in college. And not once did I think of myself as doing it for sitting around and getting taken care of. I used to get highly irritated by the self-congratulating sneers of the science majors who proclaimed my degree a "MRS" degree. That was never my plan. I was passionate about English literature and writing and I continue to be as an adult. I wish I could make a career out of writing novels. I'm saddened that I cant. But the idea of a guy taking care of me never come into the picture.

I hate people referring to liberal arts programs as MRS degrees. Sure, you have a more "secure" life in a degree with a job title in its name. But, gosh. You are so much more diverse and can go anywhere with a liberal arts degree. I get really annoyed when people suggest otherwise. I still get people snickering about my English degree. Grow up. I'm proud of it.

[Maul the Koala]

I know some women that want to have careers but do not want to make more money than their husbands. Not sure why it's a big deal but it is a dealbreaker for some women I know.

I guess I understand it in a way. You don't want to marry someone that might use you financially but it seems a bit extreme of a stance to take.

[Ridiculous]

I attended a small liberal arts women's college a short walk from a large, incredibly male-dominated engineering university. There was some statistic like 80% of graduates from my school married boys from the other school going back to the founding of our college. I met girls who were 3rd or 4th generation "Statistic" who were indeed waiting to snag their boy from up the hill.

I went in with guns blazing swearing I'd never date one of those boys and refusing to be a statistic. And then I went to a party the second month of my freshman year and met my husband. Now he's a highly-paid engineer and I'm a suburban housewife with two babies. So, I got my MRS. oops.

[Rosie]

As any FJerite knows, fundies push their daughters to focus on marriage and finding the Right Guy within the construct of some contrived courtship process (blech). However, as much as we pride ourselves on the opportunities available to women today, it's not that long ago that the ideal was to snatch a high paying husband. I went to a top notch college less than a decade ago, and even there, I met people who were biding their time and looking for a husband. How about the posters here? Anyone with that experience?

I knew girls who were English majors, photography majors, arts majors who came from upper middle class homes, who had the expectations that they would continue that comfortable lifestyle despite selecting low paying careers. It was an interesting phenomenon that I didn't see replicated as much with guys, who were more likely to be finance and engineering majors. It seems gender roles are still firmly in place, even among young, liberals in an elite institution.

I even knew girls who openly admitted to expecting that their husbands will be the primary breadwinners. It makes me wonder how far we've really com. Even among smart women, we still retain traditional attitude. I don't think it's bad to want the traditional model, but it surprises me how common this attitude is among young people. Do others have similar experiences? What did the smart, young women of your day say about their career goals vs. marriage aspirations? Also, just to make amuse myself, how did the young ladies' lives turn out compared to what they hoped for? For me and my girl friends, I think only one of us is currently living the life that we envisioned a decade ago.

I know women with this mindset, who dated strategically (teachers and social workers need not apply) with the thought that they would be secondary breadwinners, if they were breadwinners at all. Which IMO, turns dating into a job-hunt of sorts.

I cannot wrap my mind around this (a man is not a plan), but there it is.

[Rosie]

I know some women that want to have careers but do not want to make more money than their husbands. Not sure why it's a big deal but it is a dealbreaker for some women I know.

I guess I understand it in a way. You don't want to marry someone that might use you financially but it seems a bit extreme of a stance to take.

Isn't that exactly what they men in this situation are doing?

[GeoBQn]

The first person my age I ever met with this attitude was a girl who I interned with at a theatre during college. She was from a local fundie-lite school, the kind where they don't allow boys and girls to be chatting in the same dorm room together. She said that she was just going to college to make her parents happy, and all she wanted to do was marry her boyfriend and be a stay at home mother. Unfortunately, she had a history of health problems and had to leave the internship when her body showed signs of rejecting her kidney transplant. I never knew what happened to her.

I majored in theatre, and I don't want to be seen as giving in to a stereotype. I was good at all subjects, but theatre is what made me feel alive. I had met many people, male and female, who managed to make a living in the arts. I wasn't interested in moving to NYC or LA to try to "make it." I wanted to work for a professional theatre like the one I interned at, which had an education department, and I wanted to help bring theatre to children and other people who might not normally see it. Then I met my husband in my second year of grad school--and the economy crashed a month later. I never expected to make a lot of money in theatre, but suddenly I faced the reality that there weren't going to be many jobs at all because theatres were closing. I expanded my job search to include other nonprofit work, and never got hired. My husband is an electrical engineer and he got a great job offer two months after starting his search. I'm taking classes through the local university to get a certificate in Nonprofit Management and I just wrote a successful grant to fund a part-time job at a local organization I want to work for. I always thought I'd be working full time, and it's taken me a REALLY long time to work through my guilt of not doing that and having my husband support us.

[Rosie]

Hyles-Anderson College has a degree for women in 'Marriage and Motherhood' where courses include:Drapery Sewing and Using a Slow Cooker. I don't have any girls, but if I did I'd much rather she get a degree in Software Engineering.

Hyles-Anderson College is not accredited.

[LIzzieB]

I went to a private girls' school in the mid 90s and never heard of the idea. We were strongly encouraged to go out and make our own career and living. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but all the women I know who've married a doctor or lawyer tend to have had a similar career.

My partner and I are both arts workers who have managed to pay off our home loan. Yes, we are privileged in that we had a good education, but nice to know its possible to survive together in a marginal, low-paying but rewarding industry. There's no way I could be a SAHW on his wage though.

[smores]

Yes, the MRS is alive and well. Going to a Southern college proved that to me. In fact, as much as it pains me to say it (because I do love her), I suspect my sister is marrying my future BIL not just because she loves him, but also because it doesn't change her lifestyle at all despite her being a kindergarten teacher. The guy she dated before him, she kept telling me over and over that she just wasn't sure she could ever marry him because she didn't want to be married to a math teacher forever, that she knew they would struggle, etc.

My husband's roommate, during his senior year of college, confessed that he didn't want to marry his then-fiance, but he went through with the marriage anyway, because he felt that he was supposed to. Fast forward two years, and the only time he seems happy is when he's drinking.

[FeministShrew]

Both of my boss's daughters (early 30's) did this. They both went to Clemson, met & married well-off guys. The older one lives in a mcmansion, is childless by choice, is not employed & sleeps til 2 or 3 every day. I've heard her nag her chemical engineer husband that he needs to earn more money.

The younger one just had her 4th child. She home schools & has a blog. I think she's fundie-lite. Her husband is a landscape architect & runs a landscaping firm with his dad. She told him even before they married that she would not be working, in the family business or anywhere else. They built a huge house - 3 stories & full daylight basement & attic. Her mother-in-law & mother watch the kids a good bit so she can do Crossfit, shopping with friends, etc.

When I broke up with my fiance, who made half as much as I do, my boss said, "Make sure the next one can support you." WTF?

I contrast this with my college freshman daughter - she has talked marriage with her boyfriend (who plans to be a band teacher, no big bucks there!), but neither one has any interest in getting married anytime soon. My daughter is studying sociology & wants to be a writer.

[Convicted Blossom]

I used to think that way. I just couldn't imagine myself out there earning a 'real' salary, especially not when it was compared to my bf's... I once calculated that by the time I finally stopped faffing about and finished uni, my income would a pittance compared to his and more play money than anything. I also couldn't really see myself with anyone who earned much less than this. Old fashioned, I know.

Dream job? Oh... something in the arts. Some low paying career, possibly admin work in a theatre company.

I'm not sure what's changed, but I've gone from someone who couldn't see herself moving from the city, and who spent her days playing with sparkly jewellery to someone who is unbelievably cheap and making plans to buy a house 90 minutes from 'the only desirable part of Sydney' (my words, my exact words). I'm also going to be looking for jobs in a high paying, but not especially appealing industry in order to pay off my little shack quickly and find myself some financial security.

My backup plan, btw, assuming I couldn't stomach the nutty ex enough to marry him, or find someone with a similar income, was to be dependant on family handouts for the next 20 or so years and then inherit.

Why was I so lazy? Hard to say. Maybe a little bit of depression, apathy, reluctance to leave my comfort zone. It's just easy to go along with the status quo. I'm also 'ill' and love to use that as an excuse to get out of doing difficult things. Looking at Ann Romney I can see my future if I don't set about changing, something that is making me increasingly uncomfortable with my past choices.

Are you serious? You had those options to choose after uni, after hex? I don't get it. You must have come from a fairly wealthy background if you could talk about faffing around after going to uni.

[gravelmonkey]

Freshman year of engineering, I was stunned when one of my friends said she expected to give up her career as soon as she got married. She had always wanted to be a SAHM, and engineering was her way of meeting guys (I guess?). By junior year, though, she expressed a different opinion. She said she was working too hard for her degree to just give it up completely because she became a mother. I was happy that she saw value in her degree and the work she put into it.

I've never understood why someone would go out of their way to marry a doctor. Is money really more important than love? Also, do they expect that the doctor would just let them spend all their money? I'm dating a medical student, and I cannot imagine putting up with medicine (and the debt that accompanies it) if you didn't love it or the person doing it.

[rock_girl]

Are you serious? You had those options to choose after uni, after hex? I don't get it. You must have come from a fairly wealthy background if you could talk about faffing around after going to uni.

I'm totally serious. It's not something I'm proud of, but what's done is done and now there's nothing to do but accept I made some poor decisions and work hard to better myself. Like I said, I do have a chronic illness and when you're babied by family, friends, and partner for being ill you tend to not make much of an effort. It just seemed very easy to get married and let my boyfriend fund my spending.

[Rosie]

I didn't know any woman in college going for an MRS, but then again I did not know anyone from a wealthy background bidding there time to become Doctor X, Lawyer Y, or HedgeFund Manager Z's wife. To another of the OPs points, most of the women I knew/know expect husband material to make a good living. We were not raised to think a woman being the sole breadwinner within a marriage was as good a choice as any other. It is an uphill battle in my circle to sell husband as Mr. Mom while the wife works, which is a shame because sometimes men really do make better "mommies" and some women like working more than child rearing.

How about both parents as equal breadwinners? Do the men you know expect women to be partner-breadwinners?

[Rosie]

I went to a private girls' school in the mid 90s and never heard of the idea. We were strongly encouraged to go out and make our own career and living. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but all the women I know who've married a doctor or lawyer tend to have had a similar career.

My partner and I are both arts workers who have managed to pay off our home loan. Yes, we are privileged in that we had a good education, but nice to know its possible to survive together in a marginal, low-paying but rewarding industry. There's no way I could be a SAHW on his wage though.

Statistically speaking, this is exactly the trend. Men are marrying their professional equals, and women are no longer "marrying up."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/world ... emityn.www