I remembered Matt Damon marrying a bartender and Nicolas Cage marrying a waitress, and it got me wondering: is it true that most men don’t care what a woman does for a living?
Those were the examples that came to mind. Two celebrity marriages aren’t enough to establish how most men choose partners, but I can see why they sparked the question. There’s something striking about a famous actor marrying someone whose work seems far removed from his.
Still, I’m not sure what I mean by “don’t care.” Do I mean a man doesn’t need a woman to have a prestigious job? That he isn’t concerned about her salary? Or that her working life barely enters into his interest in her?
Those are different things. Someone could be completely unconcerned with a partner’s job title and still care about her hours, her ambitions, or whether she enjoys what she does. Work takes up enough of a person’s life that it seems difficult for it to be entirely irrelevant.
The celebrity examples also leave a lot out. Knowing someone’s occupation when a couple met doesn’t tell me what drew them together or how they talked about their lives. A job description gives me very little of the relationship.
So I’m curious about the ordinary version of this, away from famous names. When a man says he doesn’t care what a woman does for a living, does he mean any job is fine—or simply that her job isn’t what makes him want to know her?
