Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The Meaning of Wife by Anne Kingston

I love the cover of this book. I think people should do this in their wedding pictures.

The book is a sort of general overview of the role of the wife in society. As with many general overviews, I found parts of it interesting and parts of it irrelevant to my reality. The interesting parts didn't really stand up and say "LOOK AT ME, I'M INTERESTING," but some of the shortcomings did stand up and say "LOOK AT ME, I'M A SHORTCOMING!" so I'll touch upon them here.

First of all, I think the book could have benefitted from greater separation between the concepts of "wife" and "mother". I realize they do tend to overlap, but I can identify with wife but not with mother, so it just felt like gratuitous alienation to me. Non-childfree people might not feel this way.

A rather strange reaction I had to the book was that in a few places I found myself wishing that they would give a father's perspective on the situation. A strange thing to wish for in a book about wives, especially in a book about wives that I felt was focusing too much on mothers. But at one point the book was dealing with the stay-at-home wives vs. working-outside-the-home wives (by which it really meant mothers - it did not mention stay-at-home wives without children, probably because that's an archaic concept in the 21st century), and it never dealt with the subject of why fathers might not be staying at home with the kids. In another chapter dealing with domestic violence, the book lamented the fact that domestic violence patterns can start as early as adolescence, when some girls are "flattered" that their boyfriends are possessive, controlling and isolating. But the book didn't even give the slightest mention to the fact that fathers are often possessive, controlling and isolating of their daughters, and the daughters are told by the grownups around them and society in general that this is a sign of love and they should be grateful for it. It can even start earlier than adolescence - I've seen other men tell the father of a beautiful female infant "Wow, you'd better lock her up and buy a shotgun," with the full intention that this horrible comment was a compliment. In this context, it's no surprise that some girls and women accept similar treatment from their boyfriends and husbands, but the book doesn't even mention this. I realize paternal attitudes is somewhat beyond the scope of a book on wives, but in these two cases the book really suffered from not having included mentions and explanations of these attitudes.

Which brings us to the overall problem with this book: it simply cannot serve any purpose because the role of wife is unique to each wife. In several places the author condemns society/the bridal-industrial complex/the magazine industry/feminism for painting all women with the same brush, as though they have the same goals and wishes in life, when in reality every woman's goals depend on her context, just as every role of wife depends on her context, and specifically on her spouse. The book acknowledges this, but doesn't address it itself. This makes the book no better than the things it criticizes, thus fulfilling no real purpose.

I didn't mind reading it, but I wouldn't actively recommend it to others.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I want to read the book! The cover of the book is really interesting. I am struggling with what MY role of 'wife' is going to be vs. supposed to be. I have a lot of insecurities about what my future role may entail - unfortunately I get dramatic and think about shows like, "Desperate Housewives". Is that what "wife" means? IM, what made you pick up the book? Is it a new book? Did the cover make you want to read it?