In the New York Times obituary for Yvonne Brill, she is quoted as saying, “Good husbands are harder to find than good jobs.”
I think she’s got a point, although I think that there’s also a difference of expectation between jobs and husbands (good or otherwise).
| jobs | husbands |
|---|---|
| can change every 3-5 years | generally frowned-upon to change every 3-5 years |
| can look for a new job while still holding my old job | dating while married isn’t generally acceptable |
| leaving a job needs two weeks of notice and a little bit of paperwork | leaving a husband requires (at least) several weeks, a lot of paperwork, and a lawyer |
| can accept a new position because it’s an awesome opportunity | taking a new husband because it’s an awesome opportunity would earn me the label of “gold digger” |
| can try out something new and go back | can’t try out a new husband and go back to a previous one1 |
| a software engineer who has 7 different jobs in the course of their 40+ year career is normal | a person who has 7 different partners in the course of their 40+ years as an adult is not normal |
I’ve got a good husband, and we’ve been married for nearly 4 years. By Silicon Valley job standards, I should be out hunting for a new one, but I think I’ll stick to societal standards instead of job standards on that one.
- Even Liz Taylor, who did marry Richard Burton twice, didn’t have an intermediary husband between her first and second marriage to him. ↩