This book confronts a number of myths which are firmly rooted in the consciousness of America and proceeds to deconstruct each of them. These widely held conventional assumptions are that most marriages are not significantly impacted by differences in social class among between spouses, that class is especially insignificant when both spouses have college degrees, and class-based social divergence between spouses is inevitably a disruptive element in marriage.
The bulk of the narrative is comprised of data which was gained by interviewing a number of married couples in which one spouse was raised in a blue-collar environment and the other raised in a white-collar environment. Regardless of gender or the specificities of the backgrounds in which they were raised, the data suggests several commonalities that are shared among blue-collar spouses and directly oppositional commonalities shared among the white-collar spouses. Blue-collar spouses tend to be more impulsive not just in their finances, but in their approach to life in general. By contrast, white-collar spouses are much more detail oriented and managerial in their approach to finances and life in general.
This data is presented primarily in the form of anecdotal stories from a smaller sampling of the much larger research base. A mixture of white-collar/blue-collar husbands/wives representing each of the possible outcomes that equation present stories about their upbringing and their marriages which conform to the hypotheses presented in a way that overwhelmingly confirms the fundamental premise of the author.
In addition, class backgrounds also seem to stimulate concepts about work. Blue-collar backgrounds engender a much more laissez-faire approach to the idea of working in which it is generally viewed as a job that does not define their identity. White-collar backgrounds inspire people to view working as a career which is constantly pursued in a way that connects one’s identity to what they do above almost everything else.
Ultimately, it is precisely these divergences between spouses that come from different class backgrounds that is one of the strongest elements pulling them toward each other. The instability of blue-collar backgrounds create an urgency to seek out managerial types capable of introducing a more solid economic foundation whereas those raised in such a more controlled environment seek out the impulsivity and capacity to enjoy life on a level other than career pursuit. The conclusion drawn from the data directly contradicts the conventional wisdom which has risen to the level of mythic beliefs about the nature of cultural backgrounds, class, and marriage in America.
