Does the "Wife" Role Still Exist?

Today, society has been progressing towards erasing the lines between what are the male and female roles in our culture. Although those lines still exist, crossing over has begun, and now, we are closer than ever towards equality between the genders.

In Judy Brady’s reading, she says, “it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would want a wife” (235). From there, she continues to create the stereotypical reasons behind wanting a wife: someone to do the chores, cooking, raising of the children, etc. But, does that still hold true today? In some parts of our culture, the typical “housewife” idea is still the main belief.

On television, there are shows like “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”, depicting women without jobs, who “take care” of the home. These women, however, have an additional job of showing off the large amounts of money their husbands earn through the size of the house, the cost of their pedicure, and even the amount of diamonds on their dog’s collar. This idea of the wife is to reflect the husband’s wealth through gracious hosting skills and “forever young” looks.

Moving on to the less wealthy classes, a wife still maintains the typical duties. Their jobs are to clean, cook, watch the children, and take care of the social activities. They continue to do what their mother’s have done before them. In today’s society, there are woman who still do this job over a job in the workforce. Some of them want to be someone’s wife as their occupation, and others are just left with no choice due to the circumstances they are in.

The images of a housewife, though, are slowly fading. More and more women have jobs in the work force instead of being stay at home moms. Since the women’s rights were passed in the 1920s, a slow progress has been made towards allowing equal opportunities to females. But the fad and image of a woman staying at home has been fighting to stay alive for generations now. Women who believe in having their own jobs and paycheck though have been fighting back, effecting how women are viewed in our society.

Now, it isn’t uncommon to see a woman in the courthouse presenting a case or in a hospital performing heart surgery on a patient. The ratio of men to women in such careers is still a large gap, but very slowly; the walls of masculine jobs versus feminine jobs are disappearing. There has been a large increase of men becoming stay at home dads while their wives have gone to work. Such an idea forty years ago would be unheard of, but now, it’s nothing new.

For now, with the way things have been moving, time is all that’s needed before the walls between a wife and a husband’s duties will disappear and the responsibilities will be shared between the two. Maybe the wife will bring home the money because her job is better paying, or maybe the husband will still go to work because the wife wants to be at home with the kids. Or another choice, both the parents will work while the kids are at school.

So Brady should reconsider her standings now as a wife…does she act like the stereotypical wife because she has no other option or is it because she allowed this to happen to herself? In today’s society, the role of the wife is slowly becoming abstract, different for each couple. Maybe to Brady a wife must perform all those tasks, but in the way our culture works now, with the roles of husband and wife intermingling together, her last statement should actually be, “My God, who wouldn’t want a [spouse]?” (237).