Who should handle the investing? How about the shopping?

There were a few interesting tidbits in a report entitled The smart money: she saves, he spends. Essentially they seem to be suggesting that the most effective approach to managing money in a marriage might be a bit of a reverse from traditional gender roles.

Investing in stocks is something that women might be more effective at, due to (generally) lower risk tolerances:

... men’s overconfidence often dooms them in this situation. They tend to trade stocks and bonds more actively because they are convinced they know what the next market movement will be, ... In so doing, they incur a host of transaction costs associated with trading ... but do not pick assets any better than women.

By contrast, the average woman, less confident in her own abilities, will switch investments less often and in so doing generate risk-adjusted returns ... that are superior to her male counterpart’s.

On the household finance side, the situation seems to be the opposite:

... women’s gathering instincts can wreck household finances as well. In the context of modern markets, women are aggressive shoppers. They enjoy shopping, spending money, and, unfortunately, do it to excess more often than men do.

Re: Real estate investing... what can I say. It's a bit of a mix.