re: Why don't more wives demand their own retirment account?

I know this board (well, this whole site) is mostly men, but I think your initial assumption--that most nonworking spouses don't have their own funds--is an antiquated one. Perhaps this is true among boomer & older women, but every damn GenX woman I know is either stacking her own cash, squirreling away her spouse's money, or otherwise planning for a future WITHOUT social security. We've pretty much all been told, since the first moments of adulthood, that the social security system is gonna fail before we retire, unless it is radically restructured. Whether or not this comes to pass, just the thought of it has led to a hyper focus on retirement savings among people my age, including women.

I don't hear "all about" women married to wealthy men who end up with nothing....I hear about women ending up with 1/2 of the assets b/c they have documented their contributions to household upkeep, child rearing, career support, etc. But I live in a community property state whose judges still tend to favor women a bit in divorce settlements....YMMV in other states w/o community property.