Married to the Job examines an important but under-researched
area: the relationships of wives to their husbands work. Janet
Finch looks both at the way women s lives are directly affected by
the work their husbands do and how they can get drawn into it.
These she sees as the two sides of wives incorporation . Dr Finch
discusses a wide range of occupations, from obvious stereotypes
services, diplomatic, clergy and political wives to more subtle but
equally valid shades of involvement the wives of policemen,
merchant seamen, prison officers, the owners of small businesses
and academics. She stresses that this process is by no means
confined to the wives of professional men; she argues that the
nature of the work done and the way it is organised are more
important pointers to the ways in which wives will be incorporated.
For specific illustrations, Dr Finch draws substantially on her own
original research on wives of the clergy."
Married to the Job" clearly shows that marriage itself (not just
child-bearing) is an important feature of women s subordination. Dr
Finch points to the links between husband s work, the family and
its relationship to economic structures, and suggests that wives
are tied into those structures as much as anything through their
vicarious involvement in their husband s work. She views any
prospects for change with caution. The organisation of social and
economic life makes it difficult for wives to break free from this
incorporation even should they wish to; it makes economic good
sense for them to continue in most cases; social life is organised
so as to make compliance easy; and it provides a comprehensible way
of being a wife.
As an empirically-based survey of women s subordination within
marriage, "Married to the Job" will prove essential reading to all
those concerned about the position of women, whether feminists,
academics or general readers. It will also provide important
background material for undergraduate courses on women s studies,
the sociology of the family, the sociology of work and family
policy.
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