Rabbi Simcha Cohen
So far, we have discussed the wife's clear advantages over her husband in many aspects essential to family relationships.
In at least one respect, however, the man has a clear advantage: taking responsibility for the family's material support.
Before continuing, I want to emphasize that I am not discussing who works harder or who earns more. Clearly, many women today, especially in certain religious Jewish circles, provide financially for their families. They do so not because they are forced to, but as the result of an entirely free and conscious choice.
Moreover, some make it a condition of marriage that the husband promises to devote himself to Torah study rather than earning money. In many cases, when finances become very difficult and the husband considers leaving his studies to help the family, it is the wife who objects.
I therefore want to clarify that this chapter deals exclusively with the emotional aspects of financial partnership.
As a rule, we find that men feel strong anxiety about providing for the family; in women, it generally does not reach the same level. For example, if a man and a woman lose their jobs, both will undoubtedly feel emotionally distressed. Yet for the man, dismissal can be a very severe blow, especially if he has no alternative source of income; he may even become depressed. The woman does not take it quite so hard. She focuses more on the personal hurt: “They don't value me!”
In addition, unlike the occasional household tasks that a man performs with a sense of “volunteering,” he sees his work to support the family as an obligation and as something self-evident.
Often, as soon as a baby is born, the husband begins worrying about how he will pay for the child's wedding in twenty years' time or for the child's education. As a rule, the wife is not concerned with this question at that point.
In the past, when a husband told his wife, “I manage the family budget,” this was regarded as a legitimate statement arising from the understanding that the burden of earning a livelihood rested on him.
It was also natural to hear a wife say, “This is my husband's money.” As Western society's culture has changed, we hear men say less often that the money belongs to them, while women more often say, “This was bought with my money; my parents gave me the money for it.”
If we examine this statement more closely, we can see that it too contains a hidden acknowledgement that the burden of being the provider rests on the husband. The money he earns is therefore considered family money, while the wife's earnings belong to her as separate spending money.
At the same time, this may offend the husband, because he understands her words to mean that she does not feel like a partner in supporting the family, while he constantly feels tension and anxiety about the state of its finances.
We often encounter arguments between husbands and wives over spending on clothing for adults or children, or on a family celebration.
While the wife insists on buying attractive clothes “so we don't look like paupers,” the husband thinks the children look perfectly fine in the clothes bought for the previous family celebration. The wife may buy expensive food because a friend told her it contains special vitamins, or expensive writing supplies for the children “so they don't look worse than the other children in class.” The husband continues to insist that those foods contain no special vitamins and that children's envy should not be indulged.