The Birth of The TradWife
cleavage, submission, and the quest for the traditional woman
What is a Traditional Wife? What images or scriptures come to mind?
Now stop and give yourself a quick history of the Puritan Great Awakening if you are bored. Great Awakening Then move on to the Enlightenment. Then let’s get to women’s suffrage, The Great Depression, then World War 2.
If you trust me with the history, suffice it to say that what we call “A Traditional Wife” today is not even as old as your grandma. The Traditional Wife was born in the late 1940s-1950s. She was born as a result of the prosperity of the post-war era. Before this, a typical American family could not afford for a woman to stay home and have dinner on the table by 5:30PM for Dad. It (hopefully) goes without saying that this TradWife was born American, white, and probably blonde. She conforms to the beauty standards of white American, middle-upper class culture.
She spends her days finding the best cleaning supplies for her kitchen tile and cooking a three-course meal for her family. Her great luxury is the time she spends on the couch reading her book for 30 minutes before her kids get home from school. More on the TradWife social media trend here. watch out for the cleavage
She submits to her husband because the Bible tells her so. She wears the clothes he likes and keep her hair the length that he prefers because she desires to please him. Today, she rejects the “liberal feminists” who prefer to selfishly chase their dreams. She knows that if she can teach her daughters the joys of being a Traditional Wife then she will truly change the world.
“Don’t speak too loud or out of turn, dear. And when Daddy shakes his glass, he is ready for some more iced tea. Hurry, now and run get the pitcher,” she proudly whispers to her 8-year-old princess.
Why does she do all this? Because her husband is her protector, provider, and spiritual leader. This is what is best for her, she believes. And more importantly, this is God’s plan for her and the world.
What you need to know about the birth of the Traditional Wife is that she is a culturally constructed phenomenon. She does not exist in the Bible. Although she claims to be the “poster child” for the “Proverbs 31, submit to your husband” Christian woman, it takes very little education to see the gaping holes in this poster.
Women in the ancient world did not ‘stay home’ nor could they. Lower or middle-class women in ancient Rome, for example, spent all day every day providing food and materials for their families. While their husband may or may not have had a “trade,” the women spent their days working in the field or in the market to earn money to buy bread and keep food on the table. Women in the ancient world died in childbirth and from unsanitary conditions in troves. They were not worried about their hair length or pleasing their husbands with a dress choice. They were concerned with survival.
Women in the ancient world submitted to their husbands because it was key to their survival and embedded within the cultural construct of the ancient world. Cows submitted to the men who owned them just as women submitted to the men who owned them. First to their fathers, then to their husbands, if their husbands died, then to their husbands brothers. This was how it worked. You can like it or not.
In Ephesians 5:21-22 when Paul instructs the believers to “submit to one another” out of reverence for Christ you would have had some eyebrows raised by the people of the first-century church. How would a man submit to his property? This was the radical way of the believers who had been brought into a new way of life. And NEW it was! So you want to come at me with submission texts? Start with Ephesians 5:21 and then we can talk.
If I hear one more “TradWife” influencer explain to their 200K followers, wearing their cleavage-exposing tank top, that to “submit to their husbands” is the way that God intends it and that means texting him when they arrive at any location outside the house, I am going to explode.
If you want to submit to your husband by filling up his tea, stay at home because you don’t want to work, wear your hair short because he likes it that way, go for it. You do you! Just use a source from the 1950s era and NOT the Bible to explain your reason why.
For those of us cultivating egalitarian partnerships as we follow Jesus, spend some time today examining, what has the TradWife image taught me? Where am I allowing her to form me? Where might she be holding me back?