Experts Are Warning That Marriage Might Actually Be Harmful To Women’s Health

Kate Anthony, author of The D Word: Making the Ultimate Decision About Your Marriage and creator of The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast needed no time to think about her response. “Marriage tends to benefit men on the backs of the labor of women,” she asserted. Even when both partners work, she explained, women still manage the household and childcare, along with a tremendous amount of emotional labor.

This perspective feels familiar. In my marriage, I worked full time yet also did the cooking, cleaning, childcare, and all of the related planning. I was overworked, but told myself that because my husband made more money, ours was an equitable arrangement. It wasn’t. I only made less because my domestic responsibilities prevented me from striving for a more lucrative job, and allowed him to build a successful business without worrying about folding the laundry.