"In “The Blueprint to Save America,” the Republican Study Committee’s fiscal report from June 2022, the group repeatedly emphasizes that marriage and family should be the focus of government spending instead of the social safety net...[W]e rarely consider that marriage itself can be a form of entrapment. For example, husbands add seven hours of domestic labor per week for their wives, while a wife reduces her husband’s labor by an hour a week. Additionally, almost 20% of American marriages involve some form of physical violence, with emotional abuse even more prevalent. Women do more child-rearing and more adjusting of their careers to accommodate family and domestic partnership. And there is a lot of evidence that supports the idea that divorced women are happier. Not to mention that single mothers have more leisure time and get more sleep than their married counterparts." https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/single-motherhood-parenting-marriage-poverty
Thank you Knitwish and Matthew for your thoughtful perspectives. A reminder, in case other readers want to share their views on tradwife life: At Article Club we don’t debate issues to find one right answer. We read and see how the articles move us and then share our views in the spirit of connection and empathy. Thank you!
Biblical marriage is, in essence, chattel slavery. At home or at work, women are always required to mold themselves to make men look good. Today, few families can survive without both parents working. There aren’t enough men making the kind of money to support both a wife and children with a McMansion. I recall a study in which men and women were asked what scared them most about the other sex. Most men said, “that she’ll laugh at me.” A majority of women said, “That he’ll kill me.” This is patriarchy & nothing’s changed. Tradwife influencers are trying to find money of their own by peddling toxic relationship; tradmarriage is prostitution wrapped in a bow. (Ask me how I really feel.)
I would like to respectfully contribute a different perspective here. The tradwives in these articles would probably disagree with the notion that they are chattel slaves or a prostitute wrapped in a bow. Even if some wives ask permission from their husbands to do certain things, chattel slaves didn’t have that luxury. It seems the fundamental misunderstanding stems from what marriage is now compared to what it has been for millennia throughout time and culture. For the vast majority of human history, marriage is the bondage of a man and a woman for the purpose of creating and educating children. We can trace this as far back as 2350 B.C. in Mesopotamia. Some people around the world even today are set up as husband and wife by their families and have not even met each other. Marriage historically is about children and the roles men and women have in order to raise those children to the best of their abilities. When we fast forward to our contemporary world in Western society, we view marriage as something different. It is more about a declaration of commitment or of a loving relationship, and children might not be desired. We, in the U.S., have an economic system that demands people to view their true purpose in life through the lens of work and the acquisition of material goods, which shifts and distorts the marital order to what we see today. The “toxic relationship” is not inherent to marriage itself or to seeing specific roles in the marital arrangement. Rather, one could argue that the true toxicity is found in the pursuit of self and monetary gain.
Great articles this week. While I don’t agree with this idea, since I’m disabled to a point and I consider myself a tradhusband about 50% of the time, I believe it can go either way
"In “The Blueprint to Save America,” the Republican Study Committee’s fiscal report from June 2022, the group repeatedly emphasizes that marriage and family should be the focus of government spending instead of the social safety net...[W]e rarely consider that marriage itself can be a form of entrapment. For example, husbands add seven hours of domestic labor per week for their wives, while a wife reduces her husband’s labor by an hour a week. Additionally, almost 20% of American marriages involve some form of physical violence, with emotional abuse even more prevalent. Women do more child-rearing and more adjusting of their careers to accommodate family and domestic partnership. And there is a lot of evidence that supports the idea that divorced women are happier. Not to mention that single mothers have more leisure time and get more sleep than their married counterparts." https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/single-motherhood-parenting-marriage-poverty
Fascinating. Thank you for the great article selections on a phenomenon I knew nothing about. Who needs TikTok when you have Article Club!
Thank you Knitwish and Matthew for your thoughtful perspectives. A reminder, in case other readers want to share their views on tradwife life: At Article Club we don’t debate issues to find one right answer. We read and see how the articles move us and then share our views in the spirit of connection and empathy. Thank you!
Biblical marriage is, in essence, chattel slavery. At home or at work, women are always required to mold themselves to make men look good. Today, few families can survive without both parents working. There aren’t enough men making the kind of money to support both a wife and children with a McMansion. I recall a study in which men and women were asked what scared them most about the other sex. Most men said, “that she’ll laugh at me.” A majority of women said, “That he’ll kill me.” This is patriarchy & nothing’s changed. Tradwife influencers are trying to find money of their own by peddling toxic relationship; tradmarriage is prostitution wrapped in a bow. (Ask me how I really feel.)
I would like to respectfully contribute a different perspective here. The tradwives in these articles would probably disagree with the notion that they are chattel slaves or a prostitute wrapped in a bow. Even if some wives ask permission from their husbands to do certain things, chattel slaves didn’t have that luxury. It seems the fundamental misunderstanding stems from what marriage is now compared to what it has been for millennia throughout time and culture. For the vast majority of human history, marriage is the bondage of a man and a woman for the purpose of creating and educating children. We can trace this as far back as 2350 B.C. in Mesopotamia. Some people around the world even today are set up as husband and wife by their families and have not even met each other. Marriage historically is about children and the roles men and women have in order to raise those children to the best of their abilities. When we fast forward to our contemporary world in Western society, we view marriage as something different. It is more about a declaration of commitment or of a loving relationship, and children might not be desired. We, in the U.S., have an economic system that demands people to view their true purpose in life through the lens of work and the acquisition of material goods, which shifts and distorts the marital order to what we see today. The “toxic relationship” is not inherent to marriage itself or to seeing specific roles in the marital arrangement. Rather, one could argue that the true toxicity is found in the pursuit of self and monetary gain.
Great articles this week. While I don’t agree with this idea, since I’m disabled to a point and I consider myself a tradhusband about 50% of the time, I believe it can go either way