Following the example of Marie Robinson, of providing an ideal which serves as a model to follow, I think I will do a series about a “good wife.” This will involve several levels of increasing complexity. In practice, things are not so well defined as this — there could be a woman that does things in Level 4 but omits things in Level 2. Nevertheless, it is a way to talk about these things in a somewhat organized manner.
I will present these examples in the form of a full-time housewife with perhaps three children. In the end, it is not so different for a wife and mother with a full-time job.
The Good Wife Level 1: This represents a level of wifery that nearly any woman can accomplish. Nevertheless, it is not so easy, or there would be more women who could do it. Unfortunately today, many married women do not achieve even this modest level of good-wifery. They are, in short, Bad Wives — a curse upon their husbands and children.
The Good Wife Level 1 is average in most respects. She is basically a herd-follower, and does not aspire beyond the norms of the time and her socioeconomic milieu. Nevertheless, she is not notably below-average either, and makes an effort at least to live up to these modest norms, even if she makes little effort to go beyond them.
This wife and mother is neither prettier nor uglier than the norm. The norm today is a lack of exercise, and poor diet, accompanied by a tendency toward obesity, so our woman is not very pretty, not in very good shape, overweight, and does not dress very well.
As for educating her children, she does little more than to make sure they get to the public school on time, with a few admonitions to do what the teacher says, and to do the assigned homework. She does not expect her children to excel in school, but simply to be average. Since it is common today that parents do little to educate their children outside of school, she also does little of this sort.
The family eats a Standard American Diet, with a lot of processed and junk foods. “Cooking” often consists of frozen pizza and pasta with sauce from a can, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and other such staples, washed down by plenty of soda and other sugary chemical drinks. She probably thinks that “diet soda” loaded with aspartame is “healthy,” but since she has little ambition in this area, she doesn’t bother. The whole family is thus overweight, commonly obese, and with poor nutrition, just as for the U.S. population as a whole.
The children spend their free time on social media and playing videogames, as is common today. They wear jeans and t-shirts, boys and girls both, watch too much TV and listen to toxic popular music.
Her home is reasonably clean, but she has little ambition towards interior decorating, gardening or other such prettifications.
And yet, our woman is not average in all respects, since we have said that she is a Good Wife, and not an average wife today, which is not very good at all.
The virtues of a Good Wife Level 1 are mostly in what she does not do. Although her accomplishments are modest, her list of detriments is also very short. With a few points in the “plus” column, and not so many negatives, our woman ends up with a strongly positive score overall. She Creates Value. Her husband considers himself better off having married her, than if he had remained single.
She does not create problems. No “relationship drama” or other issues that a husband has to deal with, created by the woman herself. She cooperates with her husband to solve all the external problems and challenges that the family faces.
She does not nag and complain. A woman should inform and remind her husband of certain issues that need his attention. She is aware that the roof leaks, or that Sara has been having trouble in Math, and tells her husband so. But, having informed him, her responsibilities are complete, and have now become his responsibilities to deal with as he sees fit — which might include doing nothing at all, as there may be more important things to take care of first.
She cooperates with her husband. A woman may say: “Let’s go to the beach this weekend,” and a man may say: “I would rather go to the mountains.” They can discuss the issue, even heatedly, but in the end the man (only the man) may decide: “We shall go to the mountains.” At that point, the woman cheerfully begins preparations for a weekend in the mountains, without complaints, obstructions, ass-dragging or any other uncooperative, unproductive behavior. The decision is made and now the woman’s job is to cooperate with the man in what has been decided will be their joint activity.
She does not cheat on her husband.
She does not threaten her husband in a bid for power. This is all the threats of divorce, false domestic violence claims and other means by which women attempt to force men to do their bidding. In the end, if a man actually acquiesces to these threats, the woman will lose all respect for him anyway, so what is the point?
She has sex regularly with her husband (if he wants to). She does not withhold sex as a means of manipulation. She gives freely, without expectation or demand for compensation — in-marriage whorishness. Also, she does not refuse because she is “not in the mood.” After some years of marriage, after the age of 35, women are usually not in the mood until sometime after they have all their clothes off. This is known as “foreplay.” Probably there is a reasonable limit to such requests, but she should agree at least once a week, if her husband is interested. Unfortunately for the husband of the Level 1 wife, she is probably not very attractive anyway, and might be a big bloated land whale.
She does not divorce her husband. She is reliable and faithful, and does not blow up the family unit. Nor does she give her husband any reason to divorce her.
She does not lie and manipulate. Women think that they are going to get what they want by lying and manipulating. Men figure this out eventually, especially when they are married to someone for years. If it is a good idea, it doesn’t need lies or manipulation. If it is a bad idea, then the husband should nix it. Mostly, if women just say what they want, and if it is not unreasonable, a husband will give it to her.
She does not spend too much money. Frugality is her norm. This gives her husband plenty of opportunities to please her with gifts and other luxuries.
She does not badmouth her husband at any time. No complaining to girlfriends, her own mother, the children, etc.
She does not expect her husband to do her work for her. Commonly, there is a division of labor in the home. A woman will cook and clean and take care of many childcare duties, and the man will do house repairs or improvements, and some yardwork. A somewhat different split may be best where there are two working parents. But, nevertheless, there is work to be done, and defined responsibilities. Our woman does not continually pressure or manipulate her husband to do her work — to cook, clean, do the dishes, and basically do more work so that she can do less. She is industrious, not lazy.
We could go on, but you get the idea. I think most men today would agree that this is a Good Wife indeed, even with her very modest set of positive virtues. Unfortunately, women that achieve even this very modest level of Goodness are scarce today.
Cornerstone 