Interview data from a national sample of 2,034 married persons are used to examine the effect of wives'outside employment on marital instability. In this study, marital instability is defined as including the gamut of activities from thinking about and discussing divorce to actually filing for either separation or divorce. A recursive structural equation model is used to test the extent to which the observed positive relationship between wife's employment and marital instability is mediated by wife's employment and marital instability of the marriage is eroded entails the wife's income level and some combination of spousal disagreement and low marital satisfaction.