This is an unabashedly one-sided book. Evans says men are past masters at hiding money from women, whether the purpose is to finance secret affairs or to keep a wife from getting part of the marital estate in a divorce. It's high time, she argues, that women play the same game. More intriguingly, Evans finds that women have been hiding money from their husbands since time immemorial. A more than adequate amateur anthropologist, she delves into the unrecorded history of women's home lives, uncovering stories of women who spent lifetimes building secret, five-figure nest eggs.
Some wives do it to protect themselves in shaky marriages.
The book presents plenty of cautionary tales about women who trusted their cheating husbands too much or too long, until divorce brought financial ruin. There are stories of depressingly mercenary men as well as women. But the most interesting relationships chronicled here are the ones in which a little financial secrecy really has been the key to a strong marriage, enabling the woman to feel a measure of control over her life and providing a slush fund from which the whole family benefits. How to Hide Money is an eye-opening look at how money and power are intertwined in a marriage, and how women can hold onto their share of both. How to Hide Money from Your Husband . . .