【英语生活】女方收入影响婚姻质量 Divorce is a risk when she earns more than him

When I read last week that Angela Ahrendts was getting up to $68m as a welcome gift for joining Apple, my mind skipped at once to her husband. This latest addition to her vast stash of money must catapult her spouse Gregg to the very top of the global my-wife-earns-more-than-me league table.

It is quite an achievement. I have no idea if the two of them like each other, but they have stuck it out for a long time. They met at school and he chucked in his job to follow her to the UK when she became head of Burberry; he seems to have spent the last eight years mainly looking after their three children, revamping their home and putting supper on the table for her when she finally staggered in on her five-inch heels.

I suspect the real genius of Ms Ahrendts lies less in the way she persuaded people to buy ￡22,000 raincoats with peacock feather trims than in persuading Gregg to marry her – and to stick with her ever since.

It is no longer particularly rare for women to be the main breadwinner – in the US a quarter of wives now earn more than their husbands – but what is rarer is for such a relationship to work. A book published last week by the journalist Farnoosh Torabi draws together data showing just how hard it is: high- earning women have difficulty finding a husband, and when they do, he is five times as likely to be unfaithful as other husbands. The woman will probably do more than her share of chores; though in the unusual event that he starts ironing and cooking, he is likely to end up feeling so emasculated he goes off sex. Either way, divorce beckons.

The book, When She Makes More, is a depressing read that feels like a throwback to the 1950s. Yet I have a nasty feeling that its central message isn’t altogether wrong.

If I think of my many female friends who have out-earned their husbands, a suspiciously large number are divorced. One friend complained that she no longer knew what her husband was for as he neither made much money nor showed any desire to help out at home. Hardly surprisingly, his version of events was different: as she insisted on dominating both professionally and at home, he’d been left un-manned and without a role.

I know of only two sets of good friends where the woman earns more and where the marriage seems solid. In one there are no children, so the two spend their spare time being nice to each other. In the second, the man is so good at child-rearing and cooking while the woman is so hopeless around the house, that everyone seems happy.

Admittedly, my friends are a tiny, undiverse sample made up of the over-privileged, over-educated over-50s. To get a slightly broader picture, last week I emailed 500 FT journalists ranging from their early 20s to late 60s asking for examples of marriages in which the woman was breadwinner. The first responses were not encouraging. My ex-wife earned more than me, some said. Or my ex-husband earned less.

The majority of colleagues, even very young ones, still seem to be in relationships where the man makes more. One fiercely clever young male colleague says his equally clever feminist girlfriend has told him she could never marry a man who earned less as she didn’t fancy a life spent propping up his ego.

She’s on to something here. It seems to me these marriages work only when no ego-propping is needed. This can come about in two ways. First, through personality.

One male colleague says his wife’s habit of making a lot was a godsend for him as he loves money but is too lazy to make much himself.

More commonly it comes when the man’s professional ego is not measured in money. Various men at the FT have wives earning a fortune in the City, freeing them to be relatively poorly paid hacks. Within the marriage there is the understanding that his career matters as much – if not more – than hers. In the same way, some female journalists support men who are musicians and designers, who love what they do, and (in the best cases) are also happy to take the lead in bringing up the children.

The most interesting cases are when both started together in a similar industry but over the years the woman has overtaken the man. Most of these seem to end badly. But one successful male journalist explained to me how he had overcome the problem of having an even more successful wife. “It’s the Piketty debate, isn’t it? What matters most – inequality, or overall living standards?” In the interests of the latter, he has wisely refused to feel any resentment and instead declares himself utterly proud of his wife.

最近看到安吉拉?阿伦茨(Angela Ahrendts)获得了价值6800万美元的赠股作为加入苹果公司(Apple)的欢迎礼物这条消息时，我的思绪立刻跳转到了她的丈夫身上。她的庞大资产又增添了一笔财富，这一定能让她的丈夫格雷格(Gregg)蹿升至全球“我的太太挣得比我多”排行榜的榜首。

这是一个很了不起的成就。我完全不了解阿伦茨夫妇是否喜欢彼此，但他们的婚姻已经维持了很长时间。他们是在学校认识的，当她成为博柏利(Burberry)的首席执行官时，他放弃了自己的工作跟随她来到了英国；过去八年他似乎主要都在照顾他们的三个孩子、翻新他们的住宅，以及在她终于摇摇晃晃地踩着五英寸高跟鞋回到家时为她把晚餐端上餐桌。

我怀疑，阿伦茨女士的真正天才之处并不在于她如何说服人们购买售价22000英镑、用孔雀羽毛镶边的雨衣，而在于她是如何说服格雷格与她结婚，并在那以后一直和她待在一起。

女性成为家庭的主要收入来源已经不是一件非常少见的事了——在美国，目前有四分之一的妻子挣得比丈夫多——真正少见的是这种关系能够维持下去。记者法努士?特拉比(Farnoosh Torabi)近期出版的一本书中收集了不少数据，表明维持这种关系有多么困难：高收入女性难以找到结婚对象，而当她们有了丈夫以后，丈夫出轨的概率比其他类型婚姻中丈夫出轨的概率高出四倍。女方所做的家务很可能比她本应承担的那部分更多；然而在丈夫开始熨衣做饭的罕见情况下，他最终可能会感到严重丧失男子气概，以至于对性生活失去兴趣。不管哪种情况，都难逃以离婚收场。

特拉比的书《当她挣得更多》(When She Makes More)是一本让人心情压抑的读物，感觉就好像倒退回了二十世纪五十年代。但我有一种糟糕的直感，这本书想要表达的中心观点并不完全错误。

我有不少女性朋友的收入比她们的丈夫高，当我逐一回想她们的时候发现，其中已经离婚的人数多得可疑。一位朋友抱怨称，她已经不知道自己的丈夫是怎么想的了，因为他既挣不到多少钱，也从未表达过在家里给她帮忙的意愿。没有什么好吃惊的是，丈夫描述的情况大为不同：由于她坚持在职业上和家庭中都占据主导地位，他都变得不像个男人了，在家中很没有地位。

在我的好朋友中只有两对夫妇属于妻子薪酬更高、同时婚姻本身看起来较为稳固的情况。其中一对夫妇没有孩子，因此两人将闲暇时间用于善待对方。而另一对夫妇中的男方是如此擅长抚养孩子和烹饪，而女方在家政方面又是如此的无可救药，以至于大家看起来都很开心。

必须承认的是，我的朋友圈是一个不够多元化的小样本，由经济收入和受教育程度均超出平均水平的五十多岁个体组成。为了获得全面一点的情况，我给英国《金融时报》的500位记者发了邮件——这些人的年纪在二十出头至接近七十之间——向他们征集妻子是家庭主要经济来源的婚姻案例。初步的反馈并不令人振奋。一些人说，我的前妻挣得比我多。也有人说，我的前夫挣得比我少。

我的绝大多数同事，即使是非常年轻的同事，似乎仍然处于男方收入较高的亲密关系中。一位极其聪明的年轻男同事说，他同样聪明的女权主义女友曾经告诉他，她绝不可能跟一个挣得比自己少的男人结婚，因为她不愿把一辈子花在维护他的自尊心上。

她说中了一个关键。在我看来，妻子收入较高的这类婚姻只有在一方无需维护另一方自尊的情况下才能维持。这可以通过两种方式实现。其一是通过个人性格。

一位男同事表示，妻子能赚大钱的本事对他而言简直是上天的恩赐，因为他虽然爱财，但过于懒惰，并不想自己去挣。

更多的时候，这种情况会在男方的职业自尊心不以金钱衡量时出现。英国《金融时报》有好几位男员工的妻子在伦敦金融城中收入颇丰，这使他们有自由去做报酬相对微薄的记者工作。在婚姻当中，双方保有共识，即丈夫的事业和妻子的事业同等重要——如果不是更加重要的话。在同种模式下，一些女记者供养着身为音乐家或设计师的男性伴侣，后者热爱他们自己的事业，同时（在最好的情况下）乐于在抚养孩子方面担起主要责任。

最有意思的情况是，男女双方在类似的行业中一起开始职业生涯，但随着时间的推移，女方的成就超过了男方。这种情况似乎大多都以悲剧收场。但一位已然颇为成功的男记者向我解释了他是如何克服拥有一位比自己更有成就的妻子所带来的问题。“这就好比是皮凯蒂(Piketty)之辩，不是吗？什么最重要——夫妻间的不平等，还是整体生活水平？”为了后一项利益，他明智地拒绝产生任何怨忿的感觉，而是宣称自己为妻子感到无比骄傲。

译者/马拉