MONEY IN HETEROSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Money in middle-income Anglo-Celtic marriage is joint and nebulous, wh ereas money in cohabiting heterosexual relationships is separate and c alculable. The move from cohabitation to marriage is accompanied by gr eater jointness in the management of money. As the nature of the coupl e's commitment becomes more explicit in marriage, money becomes more n ebulous and less calculable. However, in both marriage and cohabitatio n, the questions of equality, power and control are blocked so that th e reality of women's lower income does not challenge the popular disco urse of marriage and cohabitation being equal partnerships. The secula r rituals of the marital joint account and purposive pooling in cohabi tation channel information to reduce the gap between ideology and expe rience on the one hand, and the contradictions between coexisting ideo logies on the other. These conclusions are based on two separate quali tative studies of 16 married couples and 15 cohabiting couples in Melb ourne, between 1991 and 1994.