我的就是你的，你的也是我的？
不，
我的还是我的，你的还是你的。
恩爱夫妻明算账？
作者：
Caroline Kitchener
译者：王津雨 & 邵海灵
校对：徐嘉茵
策划：邹世昌
It doesn’t signal a lack of trust—to some, it’s a way for spouses to show they trust each other more.
账户分开并不代表缺乏信任——对一些夫妇来说，这反而表明他们更加信任彼此了。
本文选自
Aeon
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A joint bank account has, traditionally, been a sign of commitment. As newlyweds start their lives together, it is perhaps the clearest way for them to say, to each other and to the world, “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine.”
传统观念中，开立联合银行账户已成为缔结承诺的一个标志。当新婚夫妇开始共同生活时，这样做也许是最为清晰的方式，能让他们向彼此乃至全世界表态：“我的就是你的，你的也是我的。”
But these days, some young couples are skeptical. “There has been a generational change,” said Joanna Pepin, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland who studies the organization of money in romantic relationships. “The research we have shows that, cross-culturally, more people are keeping money separate.” Indeed, a Bank of America study published earlier this year seemed to suggest that Millennial married and cohabitating couples were more likely to hold separate accounts than previous generations were.
但如今，一些年轻夫妇对这一做法提出了质疑。马里兰大学的博士研究生乔安娜·佩平在研究恋爱关系中的金钱配置时指出：“这一代人的观念已经不同了。我们现有的研究结果显示，无论在哪种文化中，都有越来越多的夫妻把账分开，各管各的钱。”的确，今年早些时候美国银行公布的一项研究结果似乎表明，与过去几代人相比，千禧一代已婚和同居的夫妇更有可能把各自的银行账户分开管理。
Pepin says this trend is particularly pronounced among low-income couples, who are likelier to value access to their own earnings over the show of commitment and loyalty that comes with the decision to merge finances, a quality often prioritized by higher-earners.
佩平提到，这一趋势在低收入夫妇中尤为明显。在众人面前展示承诺与忠诚，通常也伴随着财务合并的决定，高收入人群往往把这种忠贞的品质放在优先的地位，但与此相比，低收入夫妇更看重对自己收入的支配权。
Some of this has to do with Millennial marriage trends more generally. Compared to previous generations, Millennials get married later in life, and thus significantly more of them live together before marriage. Because cohabiting couples are far more likely than married couples to keep finances separate, a certain inertia develops. “Once you’ve established your relationship norms,” Pepin asked, “why would you change them?”
普遍来讲，部分原因与千禧一代的结婚趋势有关。他们比过去几代人更加晚婚，因此婚前同居的夫妇数量有显著增加。由于同居夫妇保持财务独立的可能性要远大于已婚夫妇，这就形成了一种必然的惯性。正如佩平提出的：“一旦你们的相处模式已经成型了，为什么还要改变它们呢？”
When today’s young adults do decide to get married, many of them are further along in their careers, with a better sense of who they are and what they contribute to their workplace. One 29-year-old I talked to, a medical resident in San Francisco, told me that for those who believe one’s bank account offers a clear reflection of a person’s work ethic or success, it can be hard to cede control. “It’s about wanting to maintain one’s sense of identity, individuality, and autonomy,” said Fenaba Addo, an assistant professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
当今的年轻人在做出结婚的决定时，许多人已经在事业上有了更大的进展，也能更清楚自己是谁、能在职场上扮演怎样的角色。我曾与旧金山一名29岁住院医生交谈过，他告诉我，如果有人认为自己的银行账户能清楚地反映出其事业是否成功，那让他们放弃对账户的控制权是很困难的。Fenaba Addo是威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的一名助理教授，研究消费者科学，他说：“这事关他们的身份认同、个体性和自主权。”
When I asked several married Millennial couples why they decided to keep their finances fully or partially separate, one reason came up more than any other: A joint bank account seemed to blur each individual’s financial contributions at a time when women are earning more than they used to. “If we just had a joint account, it would bring an uneasy feeling—a sense of inequality,” said Zack Pasillas, a 26-year-old office worker from Orange County, California. Zack’s wife, Karina, works in customer service at the local water company. She knows that, in the future, she’ll likely make less money than Zack, but that makes her even more eager to keep their finances separate. “When buying him gifts, when picking up the tab at dinner, I like knowing that I am also contributing to this relationship,” she said. “It’s my work—it’s my money.” Another Millennial I talked to worried that, if he and his wife merged bank accounts, their relationship might begin to conform to antiquated gender roles, with the man in charge of all the finances. The concept of a joint account, to him, felt dated.
我问了一些千禧一代的已婚夫妇，为什么他们决定保持财务完全或部分独立，如下一个原因在所有回答中脱颖而出：现在女性挣得比以前更多，如果合并账户，好像就模糊了双方对家庭财务的贡献。来自加州奥兰治县的一名26岁白领扎克·帕西拉斯提到：“如果我们只有一个联合账户，就会让人有种不太舒服的感觉——一种不太平等的感觉。”扎克的妻子卡琳娜在当地的自来水公司从事客服工作，她知道，将来她挣的钱可能会比扎克少，但这反而让她更加渴望保持各自的财务独立。她说：“每次给他买礼物或是晚饭以后买单时，我都知道我也在为这份关系付出自己的努力。我喜欢这样的感觉。这是我的责任——而且这花的是我自己的钱。”曾与我交谈过的另一位千禧一代丈夫则表示，他担心如果与妻子合并银行账户，可能会导致他们在夫妻关系中开始扮演起传统陈旧的性别角色，账务都由男方管。他感觉联合账户这一概念已经过时了。
Through the mid-19th century, the vast majority of married women relied completely on their husband’s salary. Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974, it was difficult for many women to establish their own line of credit—they had no choice but to depend on joint accounts. Now that the American workforce is 47 percent female, there is a sense that perhaps women shouldn’t so readily put their money in a place where it doesn’t fully belong to them. In a forthcoming study, Pepin asked respondents to select an “income allocation strategy” for a variety of hypothetical couples. When the woman was the primary breadwinner, respondents suggested that she withhold more income than the man in situations when he was the higher-earning partner.
在十九世纪中期，绝大多数已婚女性都完全依赖丈夫的收入来生活。在1974年的信贷机会均等法案出台前，许多女性想要提高自己的信贷能力都是非常困难的——她们没有选择，只能依赖联合账户。而当前美国的劳动人口中已有47%为女性，所以她们不再轻易把钱放到不完全属于她们自己的账户里，也是情理之中的一件事。在一项即将发表的研究中，佩平先假定了许多各种各样的夫妻组合，然后让受访者为这些夫妻选择一个“收入分配策略”。当女方为家里提供更多收入时，受访者就会建议由她掌管更多的收入，而当男方的收入更高时，受访者却不会选择让男方管理那么多的钱。
Similarly, many women getting married for the first time nowadays are keenly aware of how easily wives can lose control of their own finances, said Maggie Germano, a women’s financial coach based in Washington, D.C. Many of Germano’s clients grew up in homes where their parents shared a joint account, which meant that their fathers handled all the money.
“同样，如今很多初次踏入婚姻殿堂的女性都非常敏锐地意识到，妻子是多么容易失去对家庭财政的掌控权。”在华盛顿为女性提供财务指导的麦琪·格曼诺如是说道。她的很多客户都在父母共用一个账户的家庭里长大，也就是说，家庭财政都是由父亲掌控的。
“In a lot of those cases, the mother of my client ended up in a precarious financial situation because she had no say over what was happening with her finances,” Germano said. “My clients want to make sure they never end up in a situation where they don’t know what is going on.” That perspective, she says, leads many of her married Millennial clients to opt for separate bank accounts. Pepin, when I talked to her about this, added, “Women may have access to money when you pool total household income, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to control.”
“在很多这样的案例中，客户母亲的财务状况都会陷入十分艰难的境地，因为她在自己的财务事宜上没有发言权，”格曼诺说，“我的客户想要确保她们永远不要陷入一个对自己的财务状况一无所知的境地。”她认为，这种观点驱使许多已婚的千禧一代女客户选择独立的银行账户。我跟佩平谈到这件事情时，她补充说：“把所有的家庭收入放在一起时，女性或许也能支取账户里的钱，但这并不等于她就拥有控制权。”
Some worry that this trend of keeping money separate doesn’t bode well for Millennials’ relationships. According to a 2006 study published in the journal Gender & Society, couples who merge their finances are more likely to stay together than couples who don’t. “When couples maintain their accounts separately, it’s indicative of a certain lack of trust, and a lack of commitment,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
有人担心这种账务分开的趋势对千禧一代的婚恋关系而言不是一个好兆头。据《性别与社会》杂志2006年的一份研究称，与账务分管的夫妻相比，合并账户的夫妻保持稳定关系的可能性更大。弗吉尼亚大学的全国婚姻项目负责人W. 布拉德福·威尔科克斯说：“如果夫妻各管各的帐，就说明他们之间缺乏一定的信任，也缺少对彼此的交托。”
But another scholar who specializes in families, Jeff Dew, an associate professor at Brigham Young, was skeptical about using the results of a 12-year-old study when thinking about today’s young newlyweds. “If Millennials are a quantitatively different generation,” he said, “those numbers may not apply to them.”
但另一位家庭方面的研究专家，杨百翰大学的副教授杰夫·迪尤，则对这一12年前的研究结果用于当今新婚夫妇的可行性提出了质疑。他说：“如果千禧一代从根本上说已经与上一代不同了，那这些数据就不能用来判断他们的未来。”
Indeed, the 20- and 30-somethings I spoke with all felt strongly that separate bank accounts don’t signal a lack of trust—if anything, they said, it’s a sign that partners trust each other more. Zack and Karina Pasillas have a clear understanding that, if either of them needs money, they’ll help each other out. Their debts are due, and their salaries come in, at different times of the month, so sometimes one will cover the other. “It’s about having trust that, if needed, I can cover her end, and she can cover my end, too,” Zack Pasillas said.
的确，与我交谈过的二三十岁的年轻人都坚定地认为，财务分管并非缺乏信任的标志，相反，他们说，这恰恰是夫妻对彼此更加信任的表现。扎克和卡瑞娜·卡西拉斯对此有一个明确的认识：如果他们中的任何一方需要钱，另一方就肯定会帮忙。他们两人每月的还款日和工资进账日都不同，所以有时候一个会帮另一个垫付信用卡账单。“这说明了我们对彼此的信任，我们相信，在有需要的情况下，我可以帮她还钱，她也可以帮我还。”扎克·卡西拉斯说。
