ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, we looked at the choices open to single women. We also saw how women approach partner selection: they hoped to find a husband whose earning capacity would allow them to escape the drudgery of their paid work. Given that the women in this chapter and the next have in the main, married men with steady incomes, the next question was whether they now had what they desired and why some were still in paid work. I wanted to know the meaning marriage had for those who had already embarked on this path. They were the majority of the women I interviewed and I asked what happened to them after marriage. Some women have remained in the work-force while others have left. I wanted to know the reasons behind these choices. For those who remain employed, I was interested to know whether earning a wage in a monetised economy transforms women’s relationships to the men in their lives and consequently shifts the gender contract between women and men. Pfau-Effinger uses the concept of a gender contract as opposed to gender relations which she sees as being more deterministic:
… the concept of gender contract emphasises more explicitly the contribution of all actors, including women themselves, in the reproduction and changing of structures. The gender contract concept thus implies greater reference to the action dimension than the gender relations concept, which implies greater stress on structural factors.
