Wife smarter than husband?
Is it safe for a wife to be smarter than her husband?
Of course! Men who cannot afford social ornaments sometimes
want inferior wives. Why? Often because they harbor a great
sense of inferiority. Therefore at all economic levels there are
some men who want apparently weak and docile women whom they can
dominate completely, who will not put up any arguments, and who
will do as they are told without any "ifs," "ands," or "buts."
Likewise there are women who either want to be dominated, or who
are so eager to marry that they will do so under such
circumstances.
What about the "ordinary man" who has no serious feelings of
inadequacy, and who cannot afford, and does not desire a social
ornament? Does he demand that his wife not have too many brains?
Certainly he wants her to be intelligent enough to do her job
well. He does not want to feel ashamed of her because of her
stupidity. Actually, too, the marriage will turn out more
successfully if the wife is smart enough to be interesting, and
to help develop satisfying personal relationships.
Still, the man usually does not want to feel inferior to his
wife. But feeling inferior is not the same as being inferior.
Some men have a quiet pride in a wife who is smarter, provided
that she is smart enough not to make him appear and feel
inferior, especially in front of his friends.
Some men, like some women, want others to run things for them.
This desire may result from an unwillingness to assume
responsibilities. It may come from a deep-seated desire to be
dominated. Whatever its basis, there are men who want to be
dominated by their wives. In such cases, both of them should
know it in advance.
The problem is not limited to what men in general, or this man
in particular, may want. There is also social demand. The boy
and the girl who plan marriage should have a clear understanding
of what the entire situation actually is, including its
contradictions which they must somehow resolve.
Our culture expects the husband to be intellectually superior
to his wife. Yet actually, he is not and in many cases cannot
be. By the law of chances, there will be almost as many wives
who are superior to their husbands, as husbands who are superior
to their wives. So what to do?
In real life the situation does not work out too badly.
Vocationally, the wife usually becomes side-tracked while she is
bearing and rearing the children. With a twenty-year advantage,
even a relatively inferior husband can usually manage to keep
ahead. And as a result of the differences in what society
expects, the wife usually runs with the throttle only partly
open.
While the husband is advancing himself vocationally, or rising
in his company, the wife busies herself getting up church
suppers and organizing flower shows which consume her time and
energy, but do not show up in either the pay check or her
vocational standing.
Yet such advantages are not always enough to keep the husband
ahead. If the difference in ability is marked, it speedily
becomes known.
Such a situation may be concealed by a polite little conspiracy
to maintain the fiction of male superiority, but everyone knows
to whom to go, to get things done. In our day this fiction is
becoming more difficult to maintain.
More and more wives are going back to work as soon as their
children are old enough to be left by themselves, and are
getting real money and recognition.
In some instances, the wife will outstrip her husband. The
problem often becomes a real issue at the time when her income
exceeds his.
My feeling is that the soundest marriages are those in which
husband and wife are on about the same level of intelligence. We
may think that the problem will be serious, only if the girl is
markedly superior, but this is by no means necessarily true. The
girl who marries a man who is intellectually far superior may
face problems quite as serious. She will be safer if she chooses
a man more nearly on her own level, so that through the years
the relationship can most easily be maintained.
There is just as much chance that the wife will be superior to
the husband, as the other way around. All who marry should face
this fact. Actually there is no more justification for a man
feeling embarrassed because his wife is superior, than there is
for a wife to feel embarrassed because her husband excels her.
In any case, character and personality are far more important,
provided each of the couple is intelligent enough to do a good
job.