Charles Murray, co-author of one of our favorite books, The Bell Curve, makes some very cogent observations about the importance of stay at home wives and their great contribution to American society in this article at the American Enterprise Institute website. He very carefully makes the distinction between stay at home wives and stay at home moms, then says this:
The point is that many of the important forms of social capital take more time than a person holding a full-time job can afford. Who has been the primary engine for creating America’s social capital throughout its history, making our civil society one of the sociological wonders of the world? People without full-time jobs. The overwhelming majority of those people have been wives.
This seems precisely right. Murray acknowledges that stay at home wifehood is not for everyone and not even possible in many cases. It is obviously true that stay at home wives are even less understood and appreciated in our society than stay at home moms. It also seems obviously true that they contribute greatly to our society and are made possible by marriage as it has been practiced in America up until about twenty years ago. It is a great article and very timely for Lorena and I now that we are empty nesters. Lorena is trying to figure out what to do next (I need and want to keep working). These are not easy things to figure out.
Betty Blonde #211 – 05/07/2009
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