Will your success make your marriage a failure?

A husband who earns less than his wife is doomed to an early divorce, a poor sex life and early death.

Money in marriage means power and while women have crashed through the psychological barriers to the top jobs, men have been unable to cope with the position of the lower wage earner.

The remarkable study of top earning wives and their marriages will be published next year. The magazine Psychology Today previews the research and points out that in the United States a million women now bring home more than their husbands. "One of the biggest problems for both husbands and wives in marriages of unequal earnings is that there are so few model couples who have dealt successfully with the situation," says the magazine. "Many simply don't know how to behave in public or private."

The hard facts are that wives who out-perform their husbands in the employment arena set a domestic scenario for disaster. Sex lives suffer and feelings of love diminish. The couples run a high risk of mutual psychological and physical abuse, which leads to a significantly higher divorce rate. Finally for some underachieving husbands whose wives are over-achievers premature death from heart disease is 11 times more frequent than normal.

The exception is in cases where wives earn more but in a typically female job - secretary, nurse or researcher. Sociologist Dana Hiller who prepared the report along with William Philliber, comments: "It's okay for your wife to have a higher-paying or higher status job, as long as she's a nurse or a teacher - because that is what women are supposed to be."

1. Is it possible for a man to put up with being less successful than his wife?

2. Why is it such a problem?

"EVERY MOTHER IS A WORKING MOTHER"

How nice for women's lib that people seem to think it has, on the whole, improved the lot of women: 57% tend to agree with this, while only 28% tend to disagree.

I went down to Plymouth and stood outside Tesco, which is in the main shopping precinct in the middle of the town, and for an hour I stopped ladies out shopping and asked them about feminism.

I stopped two much younger women about 25, young marrieds with plastic shopping bags. "I'm against these women's libbers," said one. "Yes," said the other. "They want women to work as coal miners and pick up coal. Well, let them not me, though."

"The man should be the man in the house. He should be the dominant one. "

"But they should get the same pay if they do the same job."

"I like being whistled at. I like all that. It means they fancy you. If you don't fancy them, you just tell them to get lost. There's no problem. I'm quite happy with the way things are."

Near the front entrance sitting on a bench under a tree, was a well-dressed lady of 65 with a dog on her lap, a doctor's wife with three children.

"It never occurred to me as a young woman to think for myself. I suppose I could have done things, they were possible, but I just didn't. My daughters went off abroad all on their own when they were very young. I wish I'd done that. They can take up any career they like - either academic or working with their hands. All young women are liberated today."

Two younger women, aged 19, walked past, both students at Plymouth Polytechnic, just round the corner from Tesco. They said they were Edweige Johnson and Jackie McGarvey and they approved of equal rights and equal pay, but they wouldn't call themselves radicals.

"I don't feel personally I've been exploited, not yet. Perhaps when I go for a job and a man gets it and not me, then I'll be upset and join a radical group. You have to be affected before you want to take action. But women do have it harder. They have two jobs to do, while men just have one."

"I'm glad I'm a woman. I wouldn't want to be a man. We've got the opportunity to do two things, be a mother or a career woman, though I know radicals would disagree with that thinking. Personally, I want lots of children," said Edweige.

"I don't want any," said Jackie.

I noticed a young woman in her mid twenties, standing in side the doorway of Tesco, with bleached hair, a mini-skirt and a large black dog on a strong lead.

"It doesn't affect me," she said "I am equal. They wouldn't try to boss me around. I once went for a job in a garage and the bloke said females weren't suited for the job. It was just on the petrol pumps. I told him to shove it up his arse. "

Did she ever get whistled at? "I should hope so, dear. I'm on the game. I'd be upset if they didn't turn and look at me."

Back in London, I went to Hammersmith to meet some well brought up young ladies at St Paul's Girls' School, an independent day school whose old Old Girls include Shirley Williams and Brigid Brophy.

There were eleven girls in my workshop, all very bright and keen looking, plus two or three teachers and other adults.

Out of the eleven, five had working mums, but none of them thought their mother was exploited or had a rotten life. They admitted their fathers did very little in the kitchen, or anything very much domestic, but accepted that as natural.

As for their own future, they all expected to go to some sort of college and get a professional training. Of the eleven, five were doing science, five arts and one was doing a mixture.

So far it was all to be expected. St Paul's is a top school, with girls who are clever, motivated and come from homes where education for girls is valued highly.

But when it came to their personal future, I was surprised to discover that all of them planned to get married, have children, and give up their career, whatever it was, during the raising of their children.

"If you have children, it's not fair on them to carry on working. "

"You owe it to your children to be a total mother. "

"I'd hope my career was doing well enough, so that I could come back to it a few years later, when the children were growing up."

Wishful thinking, in an age of heavy unemployment, but they were all happily looking forward to being wives and mothers. After some discussion, they decided 24 would be a good age to get married.

I asked how many of them considered themselves to be feminists. Not one of them did.

The adults present seemed surprised so I asked one of the teachers afterwards if perhaps I'd had an untypical group. She thought not, but she had been amazed by what they'd said. "Nothing has changed in 25 years."

It's not too surprising that working class mums, coming out of Tesco, feel feminism has nothing to do with them, but it must be worrying for the movement if intelligent, middle class girls are equally happy to take up their traditional sexist roles.

1. What's your attitude to feminism and emancipation of women's rights?

2. In what spheres are men and women still not equal?

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