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Notes -
I definitely agree that control over the accounts is important. I just don't see how that's related to being a breadwinner or a homemaker. Just because someone is the person who performs the labor that leads to money being deposited in an account doesn't mean they're the one who controls said account. In East Asia, for example, the traditional arrangement is that the husband works outside the home to earn a salary and the wife manages the finances, giving him an allowance to spend. So to answer
"We are married and therefore equal stakeholders of this marriage and should have equal say over how our money is spent. If you don't agree with this, I will tell my friends and your reputation will be harmed. If you still do not accede, I will take you to court and you will lose because every institution that deals with this sort of thing recognizes financial abuse as a real and horrible thing, especially when done by a man to a woman, and you will incur their wrath."
If it's just two people having an argument, no arguments matter. It doesn't matter who's correct unless one of them can use their correctness to convince the other, which is a strategy easily defeated by refusing to be convinced. The only time anything matters is when other people get involved. Therefore, the winning argument is to go to a third party and say "My husband is doing the dictionary definition of financial abuse to me. Please smite him." And unless that third party agrees with the husband that it's his money and not their money (which they won't, as was the point of my hypothetical "You have no right to complain" conversation), the wife easily emerges victorious.
That is fascinating, because I was honestly about to make the same argument in the opposite direction: that regardless of how far orders could actually be enforced in a case of open resistance, people mostly obey when they believe the other person has a legitimate authority to give the orders. A husband's being able to say "Come on, I'm happy to support you because I love you, but I sweated for this money while you were baking cookies with the kids, it is the product of my labor and skill" - well, that's a somewhat psychologically compelling way to claim authority over the family funds. And "I gave you this material thing, now you owe me something back" is pretty universally effective as a coercion tactic, so much so that street scammers use it on tourists all the time.
Respecting my friend's example, I was only imagining that it illustrated how having an independent income can ensure your children get what they need even if your husband is a skinflint - I'm pretty well up in modern PMC/HR-type attitudes, but it never occurred to me that her predicament was textbook financial abuse or that she should call him out on it, so it's really interesting that you find it obviously unacceptable. Knowing the wife, I'm fairly sure she also just thinks "well, so he feels possessive about the money, no use starting a big fight about it," so preserves family harmony while being a little sad about what she is and isn't able to do for the kids.
At least one relative she consulted in my hearing also had the reaction that it was unkind of him to keep refusing the house (so, not "you have no right to complain"), but without any instinctive sense that his behavior was actually violating her financial rights, so I'm not as optimistic about the informal third-party community intervention as you are. And I do think that taking things all the way to separation over something like low-level bullying would be obviously disastrous for a mom with no money and small kids who adore their dad.
Without having seen the_others' comment, I had written but not yet posted:
I did consider mentioning the phrase "financial abuse"--because it is.
But it does also seem to me that perhaps among younger people especially (IOW, Reddit commenters)...well, 2 things:
these ideas have maybe been lost / not adopted; and more specifically (possibly a side point)
recent parents having often relied on "when you're helping pay for it, then you can have a say" to control their adolescent children, has left modern young people more inclined toward this type of attitude toward the SAHP.
To put it another way, some subcultures maybe don't have (not sure if "lost" or "never developed") the social technology to equitably manage a partnership which includes a SAHP.
It may be that where you live will affect whether your friend would win in court on financial abuse, IDK...but yeah, I would call it that.
I wouldn't call that low-level bullying. Even if it's just "he doesn't want to move and he thinks the best way to handle this is to lie and make excuses," that's a big problem for the future stability of the partnership, and needs addressing sooner rather than later. Other possibilities: He's poor at managing money (really doesn't ever think they can afford it yet impulse-buys); he deliberately puts his needs above those of everyone else in the household; he's secretly gambling, using drugs, cheating, or visiting prostitutes... None of these things are minor, from a long-term family stability POV.
I mean, I agree that if she has no established career she has less leverage. But IMO this behavior is egregious enough that ignoring it would be a bad idea even for a mom with no money and small kids.
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