TOW #14: "I Want a Wife" (Written)

                Before the 21^st century, women have always been given gender roles from birth, activities and duties they are expected to serve throughout their lives. In her essay, I Want a Wife, Judy Brady criticizes one of the stages in a woman’s life: marriage. Her essay uses anaphora and personal pronouns to characterize as absurd the gender roles women are put into as wives.

                Brady uses anaphora very often throughout the entire essay to show the vast scale of duties women are expected to accomplish as wives. She introduces each duty or point with the phrase, “I want a wife,” a phrase which is repeated more than twenty times throughout the essay. She states that, “I want a wife who will keep the house clean” (par. 4), “I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying” (par. 4). Along with the scale of duties the repetition shows, each duty is presented in a sarcastic way, showing a pleasant tone but a harsh undertone. Overall, the repetition of the phrases and the sarcastic tone go a long way to characterizing the gender roles women are put in as absurd.

                Along with anaphora, Brady weaves in personal pronouns like “I” and “my” to further characterize the opposite nature of the duties wives and their consorts have to accomplish. For example, in paragraph five of her essay, Brady states, “But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type the papers for me when I have written them.” Brady’s use of the pronoun “I” shows the selfish nature the wife’s consort can possess, while the wife has to put up with the work around the house as well as their consort’s unhappiness. By first showing, with anaphora, the scale of the duties performed by wives, and then weaving the personal pronouns into these phrases, which show the extent to which wives must put up with all the work necessary, Brady is able to build up a characterization of the gender roles wives are put into.

                I Want a Wife was written in the early 1970’s, at a time when these gender roles were still very prevalent in America. However, in the 21^st entury, the stereotype has begun to wither away. Recent studies show that women in America are the breadwinners in a majority of households. Clearly a great step from the gender roles of yesteryear. It seems that Brady’s final sentence, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” can’t really be said with a straight face anymore.