Beliefs about Financial Organization in Marriage: The “Equality Rules OK” Norm?

Abstract

Summary: Survey and interview studies have identified the existence of a number of systems of financial organization in marriage, but their origins remain a mystery. One possibility is that people develop normative beliefs that are carried forward into marriage. The present questionnaire study aimed to elucidate such beliefs by means of the responses of 408 undergraduates to one of five different vignettes, each containing a choice dilemma. Each vignette described a couple of recent graduates about to get married, with particular income levels that varied across the five versions. Respondents were asked to select the “best” system of financial management from six possibilities, to rank the possibilities in order of fairness, to decide whether or not one partner should have more personal spending money (PSM) than the other, and to explain their answers where relevant. While the differences between vignettes had some impact on the system chosen, the commonest choice was for one in which all income was pooled. Moreover, two-thirds of the sample believed that each partner should receive an equal amount of PSM. A predominant feature of the findings was a belief that financial organization in marriage should be governed by a norm of equality, though independence and autonomy were also seen as important by some.