As someone who has been married for a long time, it not that bad initially when the wife is the initial breadwinner, but in 5 or 10 years a lot of little stuff starts creeping in. One of my best friends from college has a decent job paying aroung 65k, but he has a lot of debt, his wife is a VP for Novartis marketing division making 200k. They started off around the same, but as she started making more money, she has a major say in everything, she decorates the house how she likes, and she basically pays for most of the kids stuff and the only thing he has of his own is this little mancave in the basement of their very nice house. I'm not saying it's like that in all marraiges, but trust me the primary breadwinner ultimately controls the household either subtly or overtly.