Women can choose to work or not, the same as a man can choose. If the terms of employment, compensation or ownership of property are not agreeable or secure, there is little incentive to work. No father wants his daughter to be faced with either marriage or death, so he will fight to secure her rights over the fruits of her labor.
The problem comes in marriage and the imbalance of power. All partnerships, whether intimate or platonic are fragile. If all legal rights are held equal, the woman has more power in the relationship than the man, not only over her body but over the minds of the children and sympathy of the community. This is how it came to be that men's rights are seen superior to the woman's in a marriage. To maintain order, the woman must yield to the man. It is in his nature to preserve and provide for what is his. It is in his interest to defend his property, and if the woman siezes this through her wry ways, he loses his incentive to provide. Interfere with this 'sacred' institution then the family and subsequently the population will collapse as will women's rights.
Yeah, kids really change the dynamic, but kids don't stay small forever, and some couples can't have kids, so it's important that Christians remember that subsidiarity is a worthy goal. The decision should be made at the lowest-practical level, and that's the home, in this situation.
The whole idea, that we carve such rules into stone at a societal level, in order to keep husbands in their rightful place as the head of house, is schizophrenic. He can't be the head, if all he says is whatever someone has decided he will say. Then he's just a figurehead. He has to be free to make decisions and respond to the environment.
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