Working Wives “In every society, wives have always worked, and worked very hard. The modern problem is their employment outside the home. This is a complex problem for which no ready answer can be supplied.” — The 1957 Cana Conference Social media craves simplicity. But in marriage coaching, I’ve found that the reality is usually complex. And actual Catholic teaching requires careful distinctions. The traditional Catholic view certainly gives a wife’s duties towards her husband, home and children a very high priority. For example, the Catechism of the Council of Trent tells wives to make the formation of their children in virtue and the care of domestic affairs particular objects of their attention. It then says: “Unless compelled by necessity to go abroad, they should also cheerfully remain at home.” Here “go abroad” means to go out or leave the home. And obviously this is a broader statement about domestic life, rather than a specific judgement about modern paid employment. The traditional moral theologian Dominic Prümmer makes another important distinction. Discussing women’s emancipation and their capacity for professions commonly exercised by men, he says: “Per se igitur nihil obstat” — in itself, therefore, nothing prevents it — before giving such examples as doctor, lawyer and teacher. Prümmer is speaking here about women generally, not specifically married women. But he immediately adds that a woman’s principal duty concerns the good of domestic family life, and he condemns forms of emancipation which excessively draw women away from the family or seriously damage family life. McHugh and Callan make a similar distinction in their pre-Vatican II manual Moral Theology. They say that ordinarily the husband should attend to the family’s external affairs, including its support and protection, while the wife should attend to its internal affairs, including housekeeping and the training of the children. They regret that inadequate wages often compel wives to work outside the home and say that women should certainly not be pushed into occupations which “interfere with the supreme duty of motherhood.” Pope Pius XI taught along the same lines in Quadragesimo Anno in 1931: “Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity.” He calls it an “intolerable abuse” when a father’s inadequate wage forces a mother to engage in paid work outside the home to the neglect of her proper duties, especially the education of her children. So the older tradition places enormous value on the wife and mother being centred upon the home and children. But we need another distinction. The Church doesn’t therefore teach that employment outside the home is intrinsically sinful for a married woman. Later Magisterial teaching makes this especially clear. In Familiaris Consortio, St John Paul II says that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women justifies women’s access to public functions. He says that women have “the same right as men to perform various public functions.” At the same time, he insists that society should be structured so that wives and mothers aren’t compelled to work outside the home and so that a family can live with dignity when a mother devotes herself full-time to her family. Likewise, in Laborem Exercens, he says women shouldn’t be excluded from jobs for which they are capable, while insisting that employment must respect their family responsibilities and their irreplaceable role as mothers. So both of these positions are too simplistic: “Wives should never work outside the home.” and “Whether a mother works outside the home has nothing to do with her duties as a wife and mother.” Instead, we have to face the complexity. A wife’s duties towards her marriage, home and children are real, and paid employment *can* conflict seriously with those duties. But we also can’t look at a wife, discover that she has a career outside the home, and conclude from that fact alone that she’s neglecting her husband or children. That requires a judgement about the actual circumstances. In marriage coaching, I often ask questions like these: - How old are the children? - What are their needs? - How many hours does she work? - What does the job demand from her? - What are the family’s financial circumstances? - What is her husband able to provide? - How is the household actually functioning? - What effect is the arrangement having on the marriage and children? Personally, based on what I see in marriage coaching, I think outside employment is often damaging to the common good of the family, particularly when the children are very young or the family is large. But in other circumstances, a wife’s employment can contribute positively to that same common good. For example, it may provide needed income, relieve excessive financial pressure on the husband or otherwise help the family fulfil its obligations somehow. That’s why the individual case requires prudence. Ultimately, the question is whether the whole arrangement serves or undermines the common good of this particular family. I don’t claim that outside employment for wives is intrinsically wrong. The Church herself doesn’t teach that.