Rich Spouse, Poor Spouse: Does It Matter?

Conventional thinking might dictate that if you come from the same economic background — as in, the one with which you were raised — you have a better chance of staying together as a couple. After all, your budgeting, saving, and spending habits are the same, so that means you should be able to steer clear of financial arguments, the number one leading cause of divorce, right?

But an author and researcher believes that conventional thinking may need a second look.

Duke University sociology professor Jessi Streib acknowledges that “strangers who have never met yet who share a class background often have more in common with each other than spouses with whom they share their life if they came from different classes.” But the professor also found that people from differing classes are much better at “negotiating” their differences within the confines of a relationship than previously thought.

“Sociologists have usually said that these things that we grow up with that become part of our class — those are the reasons we don’t like each other,” states Streib, the author of The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages. “The people I talked to really talked about their class differences drawing them together.”

That is to say, many were actually attracted to one another and their relationships worked BECAUSE of their differences.

After talking with a number of experts, Deseret News found that couples are bound together not by sameness of economic background but by solidarity of goals. So it’s the future rather than the past that makes a major difference in whether or not the marriage will succeed when two parties come from drastically different financial upbringings.

But what do you think, readers? Are you better off marrying someone who grew up in the same type of household that you did, or do these things play a significant role in forging a successful relationship? Sound off in the comments section below.