Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe

I read an article about the recently published book The Arthur Miller Tapes: A Life in His Own Words, based upon recorded conversations Arthur Miller had with his friend and biographer Christopher Bigsby. Of course the article picked out the aspects which related to his brief marriage with Marilyn Monroe, and I’m sure we can all hear Miller audibly sigh that what he had to say wasn’t enough unless it relates to her.

Nevertheless, his comments about Monroe were interesting, specifically that she had literally no internal resources and needed a partner who would never criticize her. And he was well placed, indeed, to understand Monroe’s complex relationship with self-confidence, as he admits having questioned his ability to write throughout his life, even after the enormous success of Death of a Salesman, confirming that only a small fraction of his work was made publicly available.

But what I found particularly notable was that during their four year marriage, he states he’d not been able to produce one iota of work. He commented that even if she hadn’t changed her mind about the marriage, he would’ve chosen to end it, because he couldn’t work anymore.

It made me ask: is this another tale of a woman with vulnerabilities being considered inappropriately needy, possibly even hysterical (because she took drugs to prop herself up), while her husband is the put upon genius whose creative juices were being drained by having her in his life? Don’t get me wrong, I suspect it was nigh on impossible for anyone to make Monroe feel safe and secure enough to shine in her own right, but this depiction of their relationship as somehow vampiric in nature on her part, is pretty brutal – especially when Miller admits the dramatic success of Death of a Salesman contributed to the breakdown of his first marriage because his “horizon suddenly opened up into all kinds of other ways of expressing my dominance.” Hmmm…

We’ve all heard the saying “behind every successful man there is a woman” which, while clearly refencing the fact that ambitious men need a particular kind of wife, is nevertheless speaking in a condescending manner to the woman. For this kind of woman is one who, even when clever and talented themselves, is willing to make their lives secondary to his, to manage life so it does not interfere with his ability to maximise every opportunity, to remove all need for him to involve himself in the mundane and the drudge.

There’s a section in Michelle Obama’s first book Becoming about their early years together where she speaks about Barack routinely taking time to go to the gym on the way home from work, without giving any thought to her wishing to do likewise. Now Barack Obama is no Pete Hegseth and, sadly this was the norm. It took Michelle to wake up and smell the coffee herself about the inequity, before ensuring he did too. And who would question that Michelle had to make decisions about her own career in order that her husband could reach the highest of peaks.

In a world where “wife work” is a term which needs no clarification (not to wives anyway), how do talented and clever women get to marry and have children, while carving out a career for themselves? How many husbands are willing to put their careers on pause to provide the type of support which would be normally expected of a wife? Or is it only possible if they hire a “wife” (or series of wives) to provide the support network which is needed to allow both husband and wife to shine in their chosen careers?

My friend is a clever and talented women who had a seriously high powered job, earning a 6-figure salary some 20 years ago. Or she did until her daughter was born. Then, despite her being the significantly more senior and higher earner, her husband was not willing to make any adjustment to support her continued professional ascent. When the marriage (unsurprisingly) broke down, she changed career for something less high earning, but which allowed her to be an active parent to their daughter. Compare this with her brother, who was equally clever and talented and high earning, yet married a woman who had no interest in being anything other than a stay-at-home wife. She was clever and talented, but not ambitious in any way for herself, and supported his climb to the top, to have a career which involved him being entirely wrapped up in his private jet type of business world. They now have multiple million pound homes and are rich enough to have been granted Swiss nationality. Contrast that with my friend who, while having a lovely home she built it herself, ownership of it was only possible via her brother’s financial generosity.

To be honest, I don’t really have a question – this is more in the way of a rant. My final thought on this is whenever I hear feminists insisting that God is a woman… all I can say, where are you going with that? Explain to me why you’d believe She’d load the dice so heavily in favour of the opposite gender?

I’d love to hear your thoughts either on any of these scenarios, or any other gender related topic.

© Debs Carey, 2026