I thought I'd post this blog from a topic broached by a friend on Twitter. What is a wife. What is a "good wife?" And how do we teach the young ladies of today how to be a wife, and not a "baby's mama?"Wife: a female partner in a marriage
That's Merriam-Webster's definition of marriage. Here's mine:
A partner for life to love, honor, cherish, discuss with, fight with, brawl with, be vulnerable with.
The wife is not being enslaved or subjugated, but working as a partner to raise children; make it through this madness in one piece. My marriage of almost 23 years has not always been a bed of roses, and I'd be lying if I told you that. I consider myself a good wife. Why? Because I have stuck through it with a man that I love, honor, cherish, discuss with, fight with, brawl with, and am vulnerable with. And because of this, both my husband and myself teach our daughters how not to end up as another statistic: the baby mama. Not to choose reproduction over marriage. Instilling into them that if a man is not "good enough" to marry, why would you have children with them?
The role of the woman has changed. Back in the days when fire was first created (circa 1960 and prior), women wore a different suit than today's woman. She was a wife, chief cook, and bottle washer. There were definitive roles for both men and women. She was taught by her mother how to keep house and tend to children. A man was taught how to bring home the bacon and manage his household. He was often the disciplinarian; bringing the children back into line when they crossed it. That's where the term "wait 'til your father gets home" came from.
In the years I've been here on planet Earth I've seen things change, and not for the better. Many of the problems arose when women entered the workforce back in the 1960s not because we had to for economic necessity, but because we wanted to show men that we were equal: that we could do everything they could. Things started spiraliing downhill as more and more women entered the working world as our young ones were left at day cares, or even to fend for themselves. The mentality that a woman can be both a mother AND a father further created the divide we see today. As we became more sexually aware, more "out there," the desire to have a man as a husband waned. The divorce rate increased; the marriage rate decreased.
The baby mama-drama stems from all this. The need for women to feel empowered: being the one in control of every aspect of her life, especially reproduction. With the man being a mere sperm donor, he does not feel the need to stay around. And the cycles continues as yet another generation of women feel the need to leave menfolk out of their family equation. Men are not off the hook for creating this mess. Since they've been severed from the role of provider for the family unit, they figure they might as well take advantage of not having any responsibility at all in regards to raising children. There is chaos pursuant to NEITHER party willing to create a bond of man-woman-child.
Now that society has created a new mindset on family and family values you have to ask yourselves: will we ever go back to the time when a man and a woman raised children together? To set up a firm foundation with the man or woman before there is reproduction? Is there a stigma attached to those who choose to marry, and not simply reproduce?
rainwriter jones
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