Trad wife movement vs working wives

[Anastasia13]

Where do we stand on the trad wife movement? I like parts of it, but I also recognize that there is some financial security if something happens to hubby and I don’t have a 19 year career gap. It’s been pointed out that it is also security for a woman whose husband leaves her, but I also know that we should not get married with that possibility in mind. 

[little2add]

1 hour ago, Anastasia13 said:

trad wife movement

The quality of life for the traditional wife/ matrimony arrangement is far superior to just "shacking up"

It's a quality of life issue

 

 

[Anastasia13]

I feel like that is an unfair comparison, but perhaps it’s not clear what I mean by trad wife.. there is a movement where it’s homesteading housewives who make homemade cereal for their kids and do not have jobs vs working wives/mothers.

[Luigi]

There are no guarantees that one's life will actually match one's dreams. My grandmother had thirteen children when her husband died on the operating table; no one expected it, and the whole family was thrown into disarray. But her parents, his parents, her brothers & sisters, his brothers & sisters, the children's godparents, and the neighbors came to their assistance, and all the children grew up to be good people. On the other hand, my sister died in childbirth, leaving her husband with a five-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. He was a good man, and earned good money, but he had no idea how to keep house, how to buy groceries or children's clothing, how to cook, or even how to balance the checkbook - my sister did all that. But his parents moved close to him and the children, his mother advised him about enrolling them in school and other practical problems, eventually he re-married, and things worked out well for everyone. 

So yes, a wife would like to have some sideline income just in case anything happens, but the only practical solution is: Do what you prefer, and hope for the best. If life takes some unexpected turns, people will have to adjust... but people can adjust, and they will. 

[tinytherese]

If being a stay at home mom is what certain women are personally called to do and her husband is able to realistically support a family, then it's good to do. Insisting that EVERY woman in the world must do that isn't practical. Women and their husbands or prospective husbands need to discuss what to do if financial hardships arise or widowhood happens. Family might be able to step in to help, but that's not possible for everybody. The health of relatives can deteriorate and they can die as well. Some women stay at home, but work part-time or work from home to supplement the family's income.

I came across and participated in certain blog posts and comments regarding such things. Some believe the myth that women only recently started working a handful of decades ago.

http://overapplesandroses.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-past-is-foreign-country.html

http://overapplesandroses.blogspot.com/2023/12/ineligible.html#comment-form 

 

I'll mention one quote of mine that mentions a problem I came across and the response from the blogger.

Tiny Therese

I recently watched a video where a woman mentioned that she’s met men who don’t want to date her because she has a career. The comment section had people talk about how wonderful it is to be a stay at home mom, but neglected the fact that the woman was single. Was she supposed to quit her job for a potential date?

Others assumed that if a woman worked while single that she’d work while married. Not necessarily.

When asked how women are to provide for themselves till marriage some responded that their fathers should be responsible for them. Women should be unemployed and live with their parents till marriage.

What if their father is dead, abusive, dysfunctional, abandoned the family, or is in prison? Your parents might be divorced. Others may simply have parents who are not willing to support their children after they’ve reached adulthood. The family may struggle financially and their adult daughters may feel like burdens. Pressure may be put on them to marry even if they don’t like their prospective husbands.

Not every husband makes enough to support a family. He may be too disabled to work full or even part-time. Lay offs occur and so does widowhood. Never expecting women to be employed just isn’t practical.

 

Mrs McLean

I agree with you. Some of the people in the comments section must have a very hazy view of history. Whereas single women’s fathers (and/or brothers) in the upper-middle and upper classes paid their way (often begrudgingly), unmarried middle-class women and almost all working-class women were expected to make a living somehow. (Penniless upper and upper-middle women were expected to become governesses, teachers or companions to elderly ladies.) I can’t say this enough: single women have ALWAYS worked when they need to. For me the only issue is whether or not mothers of small children should work outside the house if their husbands make a family wage. That seems to me up for debate in traditional circles. But it is simply foolish for anyone to object to the mass of ordinary single women doing what the mass ordinary single women have always done: worked and (if possible) saved before getting married.

 

[fides' Jack]

Within the context of marriage, men have a natural right for their wives to stay home to raise the children, so that they may go and be the breadwinner in order to take care of them.  Likewise women have a natural right for their husbands to do the breadwinning so that they may stay home and raise the children.  There are no rights to the opposite: a wife has no moral or natural right to work, and a husband has no moral or natural right to stay home and let his wife work.

That being said, it's perfectly compatible with Catholic morality for the husband to insist that the wife stay home and not work, and to depend on him for her security.  It falls under the formally-defined heresy of Americanism (Testem Benevolentiae) for the wife to claim the "right" to work, and it is mortally sinful to do so against the wishes of the husband.  In congruence with that, then, a man who demands his wife work for extra money when it's not absolutely necessary fails in his duties as the head of his household and himself mortally sins.  

These rights and duties are not exempted even in the condition of some degree of poverty.  There is no right to a half-million dollar home, or new cars, or unlimited data smart-phone plans, or Disney+.  

On the converse, there are, of course, extenuating circumstances that would (and have throughout history) necessitated the wife to work, but this is outside the norm.  

It is part of the condition of womanhood to learn to depend on others for her well being, and a large part of that is trust in God and rightful submission to those entrusted with her care.  

[Hna.Caridad]

 

Personally, I find it ironic that these so-called "trad-wives" are raking in cash hand-over-fist by going on social media and telling other women that they shouldn't be making money.  Women's work is work and should be compensated--whether that's through an outside employer or by making sure that every single bank account, vehicle, and house that your spouse owns has your name on it, too.  Women also need to make sure that they've got something going into social security, so that they'll be getting the most minimal of benefits in the event that their husband dies.  Stay at home, don't stay at home, but be wise and protect yourself and your children from financial devastation and the terrible consequences that so often come with it.

[little2add]

 

On 3/4/2025 at 3:52 AM, Anastasia13 said:

the trad wife

what was good enough for my fathers, fathers, father is good enough for me. 

 

How is single parent household, Polyamory,  Alimony/divorce,  Infidelity, and last but not least STD's in any way a more harmonious and joyful relationship than a traditional holy marriage between a man and a woman?

 

Edited March 13 by little2add

[Norseman82]

On 3/4/2025 at 2:52 AM, Anastasia13 said:

It’s been pointed out that it is also security for a woman whose husband leaves her, but I also know that we should not get married with that possibility in mind. 

Where did you hear this from?

[Anastasia13]

On 3/12/2025 at 8:36 PM, Norseman82 said:

Where did you hear this from?

I mean the need to take care of ourselves apart from the other. We don’t marry expecting to separate, love, honor, cherish, and obey, till death do us part. If you marry expecting to separate, you should not get married.

On 3/12/2025 at 5:14 PM, little2add said:

 

what was good enough for my fathers, fathers, father is good enough for me. 

 

How is single parent household, Polyamory,  Alimony/divorce,  Infidelity, and last but not least STD's in any way a more harmonious and joyful relationship than a traditional holy marriage between a man and a woman?

 

I respect your choice if you want a marriage like that, but If you are saying the only alternative to trad wife is this, you don’t understand the trad wife movement I am speaking of.

[little2add]

9 hours ago, Anastasia13 said:

I respect your choice if you want a marriage like that, but If you are saying the only alternative to trad wife is this, you don’t understand the trad wife movement I am speaking of.

alternative to traditional marriage?  Isn't. the word trad (wife), short for traditional?  No disrespect, but I really don't understand what you're saying.

[Anastasia13]

Ok, the images I posted were from googling trad wife, but for the sake of clarity let’s do a comparison.

 

The “trad wife” movement emphasizes women embracing traditional gender roles, focusing on homemaking, child-rearing, and supporting their husbands. It often promotes a nostalgic or conservative view of family dynamics. In contrast, “traditional marriage” refers to long-established customs but doesn’t always follow rigid gender roles, allowing for more flexibility in how the couple structures their roles. While the two can overlap, the trad wife movement is more focused on specific gender norms.

 

This thread is about the trad wife movement.

[Luigi]

I've done just a little bit of research on this topic, and I admit that I didn't understand Anastasia13's question at the beginning. I was thinking like you, little2add - I looked at the word 'tradwife'  and thought I knew what it meant. But, in fact, 'the tradwife movement' is the latest fashion trend in conservative circles. And if you ask me, it's based on inaccurate stereotypes to a great extent. 

1. The idea that "the wife stays at home, wearing flowery, flowing dresses, while the husband works" is a television stereotype - maybe more specifically, a TV advertising stereotype. In my family, over the past five or six generations, we've had couples that owned a store (they live in the apartment over the store, and the wife worked in the store as well as keeping house), farm couples (the wife certainly didn't waltz around the farmhouse in a flowing, flowery dress), single women - in every generation - some of whom entered religious orders and some of whom worked until they retired, widows (who stayed at home without a husband until the youngest children were in school full-time and then the mother went to work so she wouldn't have to rely so much on government support and family charity), and women who did both - worked full-time (teachers, etc.) AND kept a house according to the stereotyped image. One cousin was a firefighter with that typical firefighter schedule of 24 hours on and 48 hours off, to which his wife and children had to adapt.

2. It's not just a stereotype, it's a stereotype for the upper class. The husband has a college degree, wears a suit, commutes from the suburbs to the city center, works 9-to-5, in an office, the family belongs to a country club, or they golf, or they can afford cross-country vacations every year. It's nice work if you can get it! But it's irrelevant to the trash collector, the carpenter, the plumber, the bricklayer, the second-shift janitor at the hospital, the third-shift police officer, and so forth. So it's also irrelevant to their wives. And keep in mind a fact that academic feminism has often overlooked - poor women have always worked! 

3. Whether a woman - or a man - is single or married, has children or not, I don't see anything wrong with creating an organized home environment (cozy is fine, too, although I could live in a Spartan organized environment). To me, that doesn't have anything to do with gender roles; after all, male soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen maintain their own living environments, and they're organized. The idea that men can't organize or clean is, again, a television stereotype (I use 'television' here to mean all the mass entertainment media - for instance, "The Odd Couple" began as a play but eventually became a TV series; most people watch more TV than they do movies or plays). 

4. On the other hand, the criticism that TradWife is not a universal ideal is just plain stupid. There is no universal ideal. And there doesn't have to be. 

[little2add]

12 hours ago, Anastasia13 said:

“traditional marriage” refers to long-established customs

 You mean like "barefoot and pregnant"? Or like the old TV sitcom "leave it to Beaver" type relationship?

IDK

traditional marriage or  tradwife , to me sound like the exact same thing.

 

Either way compared to societies today where couples do not get married and have children out of wedlock or get married divorced get married divorced get married, divorced, and have children who are raised without their mother or father.  

 

Call me old-fashioned but a traditional marriage or a couple unites for a lifetime, is a happier, Or greater quality of life.

 

A man and a woman become one  is sacred and beautiful

 

 

[Anastasia13]

43 minutes ago, little2add said:

 You mean like "barefoot and pregnant"? Or like the old TV sitcom "leave it to Beaver" type relationship?

IDK

traditional marriage or  tradwife , to me sound like the exact same thing.

 

Either way compared to societies today where couples do not get married and have children out of wedlock or get married divorced get married divorced get married, divorced, and have children who are raised without their mother or father.  

 

Call me old-fashioned but a traditional marriage or a couple unites for a lifetime, is a happier, Or greater quality of life.

 

A man and a woman become one  is sacred and beautiful

 

 

I agree about marriage to one man and one wife being a lot better than what we have too often today, and what the Church says. As for how that is lived out, it seems to vary. As for those shows, I am not very familiar with the. but likely. I just learned about “trad wives” a couple months ago as a thing thanks to twitter. Here is an article on the subculture.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradwife

Edited March 17 by Anastasia13