Madison and Evan
The focus of the research documented in the book are married couples in which one spouse was raised in a blue-collar environment and the other in a white-collar environmental before marriage. In the case of Madison and Evan, Madison is a blue-collar wife wed to a white-collar husband. They are presented as an iconic example of the instability that comes from being raised in an economic-deprived family engendering a desire to seek out stability in the mate. Madison reports that her domestic situation growing up was extremely unstable to the point of often living in a home with no electricity or running water. The stability afforded by Evan’s growing up not having to deal with the consequence of financial hardship is a circumstance drawing couples that is reiterated throughout the narrative.
Christie and Mike
Christie and Mike are another example of a blue-collar wife and white-collar husband. They are notable for fully representing the conclusion reached by the research that even when rising to a higher class level in marriage than experienced as a child, behavior based on class differences is retained. Christie and Mike both earn college degrees and both work in professional capacities in white-collar jobs. Despite sharing the same economic status in marriage, however, Christie’s approach to daily circumstances and her fundamental ideological approach to life still has far more in common with strangers who come from the type of family background than she does with her husband.
Chelsey and Nathan
In contrast to the above couples, Chelsey is the spouse raised in a white-collar environment while it her husband Nathan who grew up blue-collar. This couple is presented as a definitive example of how these cross-class marriages are fundamentally based on the idea of opposites attracting each other. Chelsey can’t stand how important television is to her husband nor does she understand how he can possibly enjoy watching the same movies over and over again. This difference speaks to the class division between them in which Nathan’s lower economic status afforded him fewer opportunities for entertainment than Chelsey. Nathan is a hard worker, but lacks ambition while Chelsey is driven to excel. Nathan is emotionally impulsive and quick to anger while Chelsey is given to more processing of her feelings before exhibiting them.
Anneka and Lillian
Anneka and Lillian are not married to each other. Anneka is very much a white-collar wife married to perhaps the bluest-collar husband in the book. Lillian is a blue-collar wife with a white-collar husband. Despite these differences both wives share a common complaint: their husbands have a tendency to leave things around the house with the expectation that their wives will clean up behind them. Stay-at-home mom Lillian’s response is born of traditional blue-collar domestic valuation: it is the wife’s job to clean the house and so she is unmotivated to confront him over the issue. White-collar professional working woman Anneka, however, grows increasingly resentful less toward actually having to clean up after her husband than with the inculcation of his blue-collar attitude that she is expected to do so. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, both women do more housework than their husbands, proving that the patriarchy easily spans class differences.
