The Good Wife Level 3 is highly able and ambitious, although again in a somewhat conventional way. You can often find this sort of woman in affluent, higher-income neighborhoods. Unlike many of those women, however, she is also Good — she does not cancel out her now-impressive list of virtues by an ever-growing list of destructive negative habits.
Since we are talking primarily about full-time mothers, of perhaps three children, her “ambition” is channeled largely to domestic pursuits. If she also works, then she probably has a demanding and well-paid job like her husband; but, on top of this, she also is ambitious about domestic concerns as well. This kind of woman is brimming with energy, and if she does not work a regular “job,” then she often has additional engagements on top of her childcare duties. This might include some kind of community involvement, or a home-based business of some sort.
Her house is not only clean and pleasant, but impressive. This takes work; and she does not stint in the effort involved in all these things. Much thought goes into the selection of curtains, or the color of the paint in the bathroom. Many hours are spent gazing at furniture or rugs, to find items that will complete her decor to her high standards.
Although her husband probably makes an income well above average, the Good Wife Level 3 is still frugal, and makes sure that her ambitions fit within the constraints of the family’s budget. Paint does not cost much, and excellent used furniture can be found for little more than the cost of one month’s cellphone bill. High-quality designer clothing can often be found used for about 10% of its original price, and it is barely worn. She leaves big-ticket expenses to her husband’s discretion, and since he has plenty of money left over and loves to please his wife, her requests are often granted.
She has high ambitions for her children, and expects them to go to top colleges. Getting into a good K-12 school district, or using private schools, is a major focus. However, her education ambitions often stop there — besides insisting that her children excel at whatever tasks these institutions present, she does not have many notions of “education” herself. She probably has little opinion of whether the education actually being received by her children at these institutions is actually any good. It is good enough that they have a good reputation. She probably does not give her children much education on top of their formal schooling, although there is inevitably a long list of after-school activities, and she does not shy at the huge amounts of time involved in making sure that her children are constantly engaged.
Nevertheless, the children have a somewhat mainstream upbringing, including immersion in the mainstream Hollywood media, newspapers, magazines, movies, music and so forth. This is considered “healthy.” She wouldn’t want her children to be “weird.” Thus, our Level 3 woman remains essentially a herd-follower. Her ideals are everyone’s ideals; but she pursues them more ambitiously. She may or may not be involved in a church; but either way, this does not produce a notable deviation from mainstream norms.
She is concerned about the poor state of the Standard American Diet, and actively avoids processed and junk foods. Her children are not permitted to drink soda, she never buys Doritos at the supermarket, and she packs sandwiches for a car trip so that they won’t have to stop at a fast-food joint. She puts a lot of time into producing home-cooked meals, and her cooking is excellent. It is, however, somewhat conventional — the Traditional American Diet of “big meat in the middle” dishes, baked goods and so forth. Nevertheless, her children get plenty of exercise and eat better food than most, and they are physically attractive while they are under her care. Her husband soon discovers that there is better food at home than at most any restaurant, and little is spent on “eating out.”
She actively takes on new duties and projects, but does not burden others, especially her husband, with her ambitions. Her husband is probably quite busy, and barely has time to play with the children and mow the lawn before heading back to work. There is no nagging or “honey-do” lists. Rather, she takes care of it all herself, so that the household is in order when her husband comes home, and all he needs to do is relax with her excellent company. Actually, it goes the other way: if she has some time and energy available, she may ask her husband if there is something that they could improve, or some new project to undertake. Her husband can delegate tasks to her and know that it will be taken care of expertly, without any further involvement from him. He looks forward to the surprisingly excellent results.
Although she has near-100% responsibility for the maintenance of the household, nevertheless she recognizes that her husband is the head of the household, and that the house, and his time there, is for his pleasure and recreation.
She has little to complain about, since she probably lives a somewhat affluent lifestyle, but if there is some dissatisfaction she knows that she can do something about it herself, and it is not her husband’s duty to cater to her desires or “happiness.” She is grateful that she already has more than most, and more than anyone deserves.
She takes good care of herself, maintains a good figure, and is expert at assembling attractive outfits to suit the occasion.
This is, naturally, exciting to her husband, and since she is a Good Wife, they have sex regularly, which she enjoys as much as he does. She usually allows him to initiate, but often she makes it easy for him by dropping a few hints. Of course she has sexy lingerie, which she buys herself for her husband’s benefit. Her husband naturally makes an effort to live up to the standards she holds for herself by keeping in shape, and this is not difficult to do since she cooks good healthy food for him.
However, since she is a Good Wife and not an average one, this impressive list of accomplishments is not offset by an equally impressive list of negative behaviors. All the “negative virtues” of the Good Wife Level 1 apply here too. This creates a distinct sense of separation from mainstream norms, although she takes comfort in the fact that her behaviors used to be more mainstream in the past (in the 1950s for example), and probably she learned them from her mother. She herself probably went to a better sort of university, but she has overtly rejected the “feminist” narrative and embraces her stay-at-home housewife role with confidence and gusto. This she finds is necessary, to ward off the constant stream of opprobrium from her feminist-leaning peers (but not likely friends). She considers their behavior, especially their poor treatment of their husbands, to be ghastly. Since she engages herself actively in anything she is involved in, she probably studies “traditional motherhood” with some focused intent, and doubtless has a good list of books to recommend on these topics. She is probably a political conservative, and a well-informed one — although there are some Good Wives of this type who vote Democrat, but this is just a thin shell that has no particular meaning in her life.
Because she is highly capable, there are not so many men that are notably more capable than she. She may come to appreciate that she is actually more able than her husband. Probably this is not really so: her husband just faces more challenges, in the competitive career environment, and more opportunities for setback and failure. Everyone can be a Good Wife, but not everyone can be CEO, and sometimes people even lose their jobs from no deficiency of their own. Nevertheless, unlike many able women for whom her (perceived) superiority becomes an item of difficulty and who eventually ends up in contempt of her husband (who is actually well above average himself), our Good Wife simply accepts that her bounteous contribution to the family makes the whole family better off, including herself. She supports her husband however she can, as she is the direct beneficiary of his success, and since she is highly capable, her advice and assistance is usually very good.
From her husband’s perspective, the Good Wife Level 3 is a cornucopia of productivity and bounty. She is pleasant, sexy, agreeable, cooperative. Her advice is good and he always takes it seriously, although he doesn’t always come to the same conclusions. Her company is a pleasure, and her household is a refuge of comfort, ease and beauty. The husband remains the leader and head of the household. The Good Wife recognizes this and, in fact, insists on it. However, since the Good Wife is doing such a fine job in her roles and responsibilities, and is completely in line with his own goals for the family, he can mostly leave such things to her. The husband typically takes care of the big-picture things, such has the basic allocation of the household’s resources including savings or the funding of retirement plans. He has authority over all intermittent, big-ticket expenses such as car purchases, private schools or colleges, home renovations or major repairs, furniture purchases, replacement of major appliances such as washers and dryers, major vacations, and also the purchase or sale of the house itself. Commonly, the wife is given a monthly budget for the day-to-day and month-to-month maintenance of the household, which the husband (with his wife’s consultation) includes as part of his overall plan.
The husband knows that such a wife certainly is rare. He does not know of another man who has one. If anything, he is inspired to be deserving of such a wife as this.
Unfortunately for many men today, this strata of highly capable women typically goes through an intense indoctrination at the better sort of universities they attend. Few ever recover from this. They are, at the core, conventional — and thus they have internalized the poisonous “conventions” that they pick up from the university, media or Hollywood. They use their considerable strengths and abilities to fight for power within the marriage, and use every method of manipulation and deceit to break down their husbands into whimpering simps. Not only are they quarrelsome and contentious, they are good at it — making them difficult or impossible for a husband to manage. Divorce usually follows, and these women are ferocious in divorce court, using every scheme to collect everything to her advantage, spewing rationalizations along the way about how it all was really his fault and she is blameless; and because she is good at this, everyone believes her, including the man’s own children. Among women with four-year college degrees, 90% of divorces are filed by women. Perhaps a still-higher percentage is effectively initiated by them. Too many men today look back on the wreckage such women make of their lives, the children stolen from them, and conclude that, despite this woman’s long list of abilities, he would have been better off single, or with a woman that was far less capable but also far less problematic — for example, the Good Wife Level 1.
Cornerstone 