Attaining a C-Level corporate position or a start-up founder involves sacrifice.  One of the chief sacrifices is one's personal life, time with family, spouse , children. There is no way around it - to be a CFO, CEO, etc you have to be willing to devote 90% of your time and mental attention to the job. 
This creates the need for the spouse and children to sacrifice as well.  What they sacrifice, especially the spouse, is having a someone important in their life 'there', both physically and mentally.  An unspoken compensation is the financial security and nice lifestyle afforded by the spouses' C-Level salary.  
An unfortunate reality is while many number of women who are willing to accept the sacrifices of being a C-Level spouse, there are few men who will. For many women, living off a husbands earnings is no big deal.  For men, it is emasculating. Your wife is your 'mommy'. It's not just the househusbands attitude. Deep down, no woman respects a man she financially supports.