Most American women would shudder at the thought of their husband spending time with another woman. Not Elizabeth Joseph. Joseph chronicles her life in polygamy in an essay that appeared in the New York Times in 1991 entitled “My Husband’s Nine Wives”. Joseph discusses how it is problematic to manipulate her life around her husband Alex, her occupation and her youngster on a daily basis. She argues monogamous relationships are chockfull of “compromises” and “trade-offs”. She mentions how excited the children are when their Father comes to eat once a week. Joseph speaks of making an “appointment” to spend time with him. If it is another wife’s turn, Joseph may interject if she is “longing for intimacy and comfort only he can provide.” (148) Joseph asserts pleural marriage is the only resolution to her problems. Unlike Joseph, most American women are managing a demanding full time job, hyperactive children and their needy husband on a daily basis.
Joseph explains that she must travel sixty miles to her job as a lawyer. She then references her daughter, asleep in another wife’s bed when she leaves for work at 7am. A woman who is not this child’s Mother takes care of her when she first rouses, feeds her breakfast and dresses her. She is more than likely a woman who has rocked, fed and diapered her more than her own Mother. Is her child confused
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As Joseph describes the benefits of pleural marriage it seems as though she is evading duties ordinary women embrace daily. She condemns monogamous relationships by implying only monogamous couples are forced to make sacrifices. When in truth, Joseph reveals many sacrifices she, as a polygamist, must give rise to. Maybe Joseph isn’t woman enough to manage her career, her children and her marriage all at the same time. Polygamy is not the whole solution as Joseph claims. If you want a true marriage and happy children, monogamy is the right solution for
In her essay “The Myth of Coparenting: How it is supposed to be. How it is,” Hope Edelman discusses the issues that she faces when dealing with marriage roles. According to her descriptions, her husband doesn’t play an active role in their domestic life and only focuses on his career. Edelman often gets into arguments with him over his disinterest and lack of contribution to home life. She responds to this lack of interest by buying a swing set along with other items against the husband’s wishes. Similarly, Eric Bartels’ essay “My Problem with Her Anger” discusses the effects of marital roles from the husband’s perspective. He argues that although he is not the most active with domestic life, he does contribute. Bartels claims that his wife’s anger makes it hard for the family to function. Bartels proves his dedication to their family by showing how he gives up drinking beer in order to dedicate more time to helping out around the house. Both Edelman and Bartels express love for their children and frustration at their spouse. As a result of this, references to the swing set in Edelman’s essay and to beer in Bartels’ essay reveal that when there is a disagreement between the husband and wife in a marriage, it is possible that one of the partners will express their emotion through rebellion against his spouse
The article that I chose from Wikipedia is Polygamy in North America. There are several reasons for choosing this article that will be mentioned later on. The main reason for picking this article is that this article does not seem to go into the specifics of the main issue regarding polygamy in North America of Mormon religion. Particularly, two communities are significant to North American contemporary legal issue regarding polygamy. One of them is the Bountiful community in British Columbia and the other community is in Utah, U.S.A. Both of these communities practice polygamy as it is part of their religious beliefs. Polygamy is not legalized in North America, but a British Columbia’s community, Bountiful, has raised several concerns that have legal scholars divided on this issue of polygamy.
First of all, in the essay, “I Want a Wife”, Judy Syfers exposes the meaning of “wife” presently in our society. Her argument is based on the premise that all wives are completely devoted to their husbands and are willing to tend to all their needs and satisfy them completely while working, being a good mother, and remaining gorgeous. Syfers reveals her definition of a wife in a very sarcastic and frustrated manner. Also, the style of the whole paper is very ironic. Almost as if she is screaming, she concludes her essay with, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”(pg.648, 11). The cultural values portrayed in this essay are the value of control and the value of wanting to be loved. The value of control is portrayed in our society by the husband having the control and power over his wife. Because of that control, t...
In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns polygamous culture is highly accepted and legal. This acceptance stems from Mariam’s own father Jalil had 4 wives, but could not bring himself to accept his illegitimate child. Rasheed and Mariam’s marriage becomes a polygamous one when he coerces Laila into marriage. Polygamy is legal in over 100 countries mostly in the middle east and third world countries of africa. Attitudes toward polygamy in countries like the US and UK greatly contrast those in the middle East, but as TV shows like Sister wives become more accepted so does the idea. The practice of polygamy has caused some debate in the 20th century; and with the new legislation legalizing gay marriage one might say the legalization of
With each wife that is married there are more children to come as well. According to Brent Jeffs in the article, “From Polygamist Royalty to FLDS Lost Boy” polygamy often times leads to poor parenting, “I’d estimate that maybe one in five FLDS families have lost a child early in life, frequently from accidents that better supervision could have prevented” (1). Because polygamist families bear countless children it is near impossible for each and every single child to get the same attention. Libby Copeland in the article, “Is Polygamy Really So Awful”, talks about a study done on, “19th-century Mormon households, 45 of them headed by wealthy men, generally with multiple wives, and 45 headed by poorer men, generally with one wife each. What’s surprising is that the children of the poorer men actually fared better, proving more likely to survive to age 15” (1). Any good parent is always looking out for their children’s best interest; studies show again and again polygamy is not in their best
Additionally, when the narrator attends Joseph’s memorial service she discovers that she has more in common with his former wives than with his other patients, whom she calls “crazies.” Her past conversations with him now make more sense to her as she realizes that she never really needed him. She recognizes that he was a weak man who needed these women, manipulated them, and devoured their hearts and souls, rather than their
When it comes to kinship in the polygamous culture it is believed that in order to preserve a certain bloodline you must marry within the same bloodline. This meaning you would marry cousins, brothers, sisters and other relatives. This creating an environment where everyone happens to be related to everyone by blood. The problem remains that this creates birth defects and even some deaths in children since the male and female having the same bloodline. Polygamist believes marrying kinship ensures as a bond in trusting, believing in the religion and preserving the bloodline for the future of the culture. The problem becomes when you continue to have children with birth defects and later marrying within the same bloodline you continue to increase
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator and her husband John can be seen as strong representations of the effects society’s stereotypical gender roles as the dominant male and submissive female have within a marriage. Because John’s wife takes on the role as the submissive female, John essentially controlled all aspects of his wife’s life, resulting in the failure of the couple to properly communicate and understand each other. The story is intended to revolve around late 19th century America, however it still occurs today. Most marriages still follow the traditional gender stereotypes, potentially resulting in a majority of couples to uphold an unhealthy relationship or file for divorce. By comparing the “The yellow wallpaper” with the article “Eroticizing Inequality in the United States: The Consequences and Determinants of Traditional Gender Role Adherence in Intimate Relationships”, the similarities between the 19th century and 21st century marriage injustice can further be examined. If more couples were able to separate the power between the male and female, America would have less unhappy marriages and divorces.
(Brady 1993)," which brings about the illusion that not all the expectations within a wife can be achieved. The author describes wants in a wife from taking care of the children, doing chores, scheduling events, making dinner, and to, providing sexual favors. Although some of the quoted wants are expected of a wife to preform, and for her to be willing to preform, it is a fanciful idea to believe one woman alone could fulfill every action in question. Quotes from Brady of the obvious expected activities for a wife are; "I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean (Brady 1993)." Then, there are the arrogant expected activities such as, "I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife 's duties (Brady 1993)," "I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it (Brady 1993)," and "I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy (Brady 1993)." These three previous quotes show the man expects everything and doesn 't care about or consider the thoughts or feelings of the wife. This thought lead to a response by Adam Ayd titled, "Why I Want a Real
... is absolutely beautiful, but has not always held true. In the late eighteenth century, literature depicted women and men who were very dissatisfied in their marriages. Specifically, “The Storm”, “An Adventure in Paris”, and “The Lady with the Dog” were all famous short stories that portrayed unfaithful women involved in unfulfilling marriages. Although their life stories were different, these women cheated for similar reasons of discontent, and the thrill of a passionate affair. With their literary works, Guy De Maupassant, Anton Chehkov, and Kate Chopin, proved marriages were not always accompanied with devoted spouses, and unfaithfulness was not unheard of.
Judy Brady’s essay “I Want a Wife” uses a sarcastic tone in order to illuminate the amount of much pressure that is put on wives, not just by their husbands, but by society as well. Brady’s tone voices to the audience that changes need to be made to the role of women.
“Why I Want A Wife” is filled with irony that shows the reader how valuable women truly are. Judy Syfers’ work places women in an inferior position to men using phrases like “classification of people,” to show their supposed insignificance within the marriage. However, she ironically explains how men are built on what women do for them. From the beginning of the
“Successful Mistresses Do What Wives Won’t” by “Sheeri Mitchell,2010” is a statistical study conducted to men and women ;who had engaged on sexual affairs of their, on insights into the behavior successful mistresses engaged in that wives typically do not. There are some valuable lessons wives could learn from “The Other Woman” when it comes to taking care of the husband.
In Judy Brady’s essay “I want a Wife”(1971), she addresses men’s expectation of their wives. She achieves this by building up her credibility and relatability, gives an examples, uses repetition, and implements satire and humor into her writing. Brady wrote this piece in order to address the unfair gender relations and inequalities in society during the time period.
Steinmetz, S., & Sussman, M. (2013, November 11). Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Retrieved September 25,