Friday, October 5, 2007

My income, Your INCOME

I had a long GD (group-discussion) with my friends over “Will you have any problems if your partner (hopefully female for all of them) earns more than you??”

If this was the question asked a decade earlier our answer might have been obvious. Back then there would have been issues even with her being employed. Let’s see what this (my) generation has in their mind.


  1. HE is the Bread-earner: one of us put forth this point that Male ego is hurt if is unable to provide for his family. He is supposed to be the one Earning and supporting his family. It’s a failure for him if it requires his wife to work in order to do that. His ego is hurt.

Who decides these Roles anyway? Let me take a guess, the so called Society we live in. Who made these roles and is there some kind of a RULE BOOK for this??? I would love to have to look at it. The whole structure of this Society is Rigid (I don’t say it’s not changing or something).

One of us was worried what the Society will say if she is earning more than me. Why does society interfere in every little personal matter?? But again if one has to live in a society one has to follow the norms hai naa!!! My answer would be- don’t let THIS SOCIETY know anything about your salary. Screw the people who ask the FIRST question, on hearing about a job, about the Package. Rather Ask about the company profile and the profile offered. Ethics to Ghaas charne jaate hain naa iss time par.

2. Job satisfaction: another argument was what is MY job profile and am I satisfied or not. Of course, this would be an important factor. Now even if I m earning a little (or very) less than her but my Profile is good and interests me, I would not have any problems. Some good Govt. posts like IAS might pay a little less but one can’t compare its prestige with any (and I mean ANY) software job.

3. Her attitude: this might be the biggest factor according to me. If she makes you feel inferior to her then my friend your marriage is screwed (hope I m not using the word that frequently). You are in real crap then (this is one of Justin’s favorites). But the same should apply to the MALE counterpart. It’s a delicate balance between the two parties. It’s like a Coalition govt. with none having complete majority to form a GOVT. lolz.

No wonder people are Scared about marriage decision. Perhaps the toughest decision one has to make in his/her entire life.

Sometimes I feel we might be too young to worry about such issues. Its been a long time since i wrote something . This seemed like a worthy context.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you rather your wife consciously under-utilise her talents and underperform at work in order to not supersede you career-wise?

It is fitting and expected of her to be proud of your achievements if you outperform her, but if the situation were reversed, would you resent her success?

Raman said...

who said anything about ME??
i just wrote the points that came up... I never expressed any thoughts about what all u are writing...

Simply drawing to conclusions without any premise... thats no way to argue...

Plus this ain't a debate... its a discussion...

Anonymous said...

That was not my conclusion, as you suggest, but merely a question, as I thought was made obvious by the trailing question mark.


This is not intended to be a debate, but a discussion. Lets discuss.

You still haven't replied, incidentally.

Raman said...

well if its me you are asking that question then No i won't resent if she has more talent than me.
Outperform doesn't seem like an apt word here. Looks like i m competing her or something. That should not be the case.

What if i ask u the same question?

antidefinitionist said...

Dude, what is the color of your watch ??

Raman said...

i don't have a watch!!!!