I want a wife:

Judy Brady
Summary:
One of the best-remembered pieces from the premiere issue of Ms. magazine is “I Want a Wife.” Judy
Brady’s (then Judy Syfers) tongue-in-cheek essay explained in one page what all too many men had
taken for granted about “housewives.”
What Does a Wife Do?
“I Want a Wife” was a humorous piece that also made a serious point: Women who played the role of
“wife” did many helpful things for husbands and usually children without anyone realizing. Even less,
it wasn't acknowledged that these “wife’s tasks” could have been done by someone who wasn’t a
wife, such as a man.
“I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean.
A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me."
The desired wife tasks included:
Work to support us so I can go back to school
Take care of the children, including feeding them and nurturing them, keeping them clean, taking care
of their clothes, taking care of their schooling and social life
Keep track of doctor and dentist appointments
Keep my house clean and pick up after me
See to it that my personal things are where I can find them when I need them
Take care of the babysitting arrangements
Be sensitive to my sexual needs
But do not demand attention when I am not in the mood
Do not bother me with complaints about a wife’s duties

The essay fleshed out these duties and listed others. The point, of course, was that housewives were
expected to do all these things, but no one ever expected a man to be capable of these tasks. The
underlying question of the essay was “Why?”

Striking Satire
At the time, “I Want a Wife” had the humorous effect of surprising the reader because a woman was
the one asking for a wife. Decades before gay marriage became a commonly discussed subject, there
was only one person who had a wife: a privileged male husband. But, as the essay famously
concluded, “who wouldn’t want a wife?”

Origins
Judy Brady was inspired to write her famous piece at a feminist consciousness-raising session. She
was complaining about the issue when someone said, “Why don’t you write about it?” She went home
and did so, completing the essay within a few hours.

Before it was printed in Ms., “I Want a Wife” was first delivered aloud in San Francisco on Aug 26,
1970. Judy (Syfers) Brady read the piece at a rally celebrating the 50th anniversary of women’s right
to vote in the U.S., obtained in 1920. The rally packed a huge crowd into Union Square; hecklers
stood near the stage as "I Want a Wife" was read.

Lasting Fame
Since “I Want a Wife” appeared in Ms., the essay has become legendary in feminist circles. In 1990,
Ms. reprinted the piece. It is still read and discussed in women’s studies classes and mentioned in
blogs and news media. It is often used as an example of satire and humor in the feminist movement.

Judy Brady later became involved in other social justice causes, crediting her time in the feminist
movement with being foundational for her later work.

Echoes of the Past: The Supportive Role of Wives

Judy Brady does not mention knowing an essay by Anna Garlin Spencer from much earlier in the 20th
century, and may not have known it, but this echo from the so-called first wave of feminism shows
that the ideas in "I Want a Wife" were in the minds of other women, too,

In "The Drama of the Woman Genius" (collected in Woman's Share in Social Culture), Spencer
addresses women's chances for achievement the supportive role that wives had played for many
famous men, and how many famous women, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, had the responsibility
for childcare and housekeeping as well as writing or other work. Spencer writes, “A successful
woman preacher was once asked what special obstacles have you met as a woman in the ministry?
Not one, she answered, except the lack of a minister's wife.”

The present essay is a critical commentary on how the work of wives is often taken for granted. The
humor of the essay lies in its structure. The writer mocks at the situations and obligations in which
wives are always immersed. She draws on her own experience to present an example of how “Good”
wives are expected to behave. The condition of wives has been shown through sharp satire. It is
supposed that wives will do all the household work, bear and rear children apart from taking care of
the guests and the husband.

The writer points out that house cleaning, washing, ironing, and mending clothes, cooking, and
serving with a smile are considered the duties of a woman. Besides this, a wife has to tend to the sick
children and husband and satisfy the sexual needs of the husband according to his mood. The wife has
no freedom from household works. Her other duties involve the duties of a charwoman, housemaid,
hotel bearer, baby sitter, and nurse. All this work is to be done free of cost.

The condition of a wife is worse than a servant. The servant works for fixed hours, gets a salary, and
enjoys a leave. The wife is a twenty-four-hour servant. The irony is that the husband is free to do
anything that he wants. He may replace his wife if need be. All these things are denied to the wife.

The funny note is that the writer wants to go back to school to become economically independent. She
wants to support herself and those dependent upon her. She needs someone who could perform her
duties while she is away to school strangely she does not want a servant, a house-maid, babysitter, or a
cook. She wants a wife who will be performed her duties like a good wife.

The writer draws on her own experience to present an example of how “good” wives are expected to
behave. The satirical point presents as the writer thinks through her reasons for wanting a wife.

One thinks “Why have a paid service when one can have a wife”.
The gender role and the gross injustice to the wives have been brought out through satire.

The second wave of the feminist movement in the United States began during early 1960’s and lasted
throughout late 1970’s. The purpose of the feminist movement was to have a right to vote and have
the same equal rights as male citizens. Judy Brady’s essay “I Want A Wife” first appeared in the Ms.
Magazine’s inaugural issue in 1971. The genre of the article is a classic piece of feminist humor and is
depicted as satirical prose. In this essay Brady aims to convince her readers to look objectively at a
man’s viewpoints and expectations of what he thinks a wife is and what she should be. Brady
skillfully uses clear arguments, repetition of key words and stylish language to make her essay strong
and convincing.

Exigence: Judy Brady writes in her essay about the demands that are required from wife. She
emphasizes the point that the roles of wife are unfair to the role of husband, and that there is an
obvious difference, inequality, between the roles of husband and wife. Brady writes about this because
she is tired of the feeling of inferiority to men and that the work that wife undertakes is overlooked.
Brady illustrates her point by listing the numerous tasks that are commonly expected from wife. “I
want a wife who will have the house clean, keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when
need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find
what I need the minute I need it .” After listing all this numerous outrageous tasks, she concludes the
article with an emotional statement, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”

Audience: Clearly Judy Brady is writing to married men and women. This can be inferred because the
article is about expectations of a wife in a marriage. But not only does she write for married couples,
she also writes to men and women in general. The fact that person is married or not doesn’t matter in
this article. The audience is expected to know a little bit about divorce and marriage life. The audience
is also presumed at least to have a high school level of reading and basic understanding of words such
as “adherence”, “monogamy”, and “nurturance”. She is trying to get out to the public that these
expectations and these stereotypes of roles of women, should stop. This goes back to her exigence,
which is the unfairness of roles of women.

Purpose: Why should people read and act upon her statements? With her arguments, she is trying to
say, “All women stop! You don’t have to act this way.” She wants women to stop immediately acting
as ‘slaves.’ Her constant phrase “I want a wife to…” rattles up emotions of readers, which in turn,
might encourage people to take action. The reason she wants people to read it is because she wants
people to understand that the roles of women is demoralizing to them. Brady classifies what a wife is
through husband’s eyes. Brady connects wit and sarcasm, effective use of language, and rhetoric to
make a very strong piece of influential writing with the purpose to show how men see their wives.
This piece of rhetoric ultimately implies the husband’s selfishness and laziness, and his want to be
“left free”. This article was made to make the audience to think and ponder.

Brady effectively uses the Greek umbrella term, Rhetoric, which is clearly organized and very well
thought out. Rhetoric means the art of using language to communicate effectively and images to affect
an audience. Brady uses Rhetoric throughout her essay involving three audience appeals: Ethos,
Pathos and Logos.
Ethos: She establishes her credibility in the first couple of paragraphs of her argument. “I belong to
that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.”
Not only does her being a wife make her creditable, she also seems to have a lot of knowledge and
this gives the audience to know that she really knows something about her subject. And all that
knowledge of what the wife roles are does not come from anywhere. She must have experienced it
herself to know what the roles of women are. She lists numerous ‘jobs’ that are expected of a wife and
her language sounds that of a fed up and annoyed wife. In addition, her article was printed in the
spring 1972 issue of Ms. Magazine which sets her credibility for the article. Moreover, she was an
activist for the feminist movement.
Pathos: When reading her article, she wants people to take action. She wants people to get angry at the
topic. She also wants the men who expect this from women to feel jealous. She does this by first
stating who she is. “I belong to that classification of people known as wives.” She addresses the
stresses of everyday life and exaggerated expectations of a man from their wives. Then she goes on by
listing the ‘jobs’ required by women. After couple pages of ‘jobs’ she says, “My God, who wouldn’t
want a wife?” This conclusion is very emotional towards the argument and it makes the readers to
conclude that, “This is wrong!” Brady says that to ‘discourage’ men who think the practice of treating
women as inferior human beings. Brady also appeals to readers who are clueless or curious. Many
women do not now what things they are doing wrong. By reading this essay, women can evaluate
their life and determine if they are expected too much from their husbands.

Logos: Judy Brady arguments are clear in her article. One of her arguments is that women are
required to do too much. She doesn’t say this directly, but says this by listing the role of women.
Another argument that she presents is the inequality of men and women. In her article she writes that
she is a man that wants to go to school and be supported financially. And there is a female spouse that
must take care of the house, kids, appointments, money, and social life. She argues that this must stop
and that people are expecting too much from women. Her arguments are very effective. Her
credibility attracts readers to her article. And by listing the ‘jobs’ of women, one by one; she
captivates her readers into her arguments. Her simple words are extremely effective in getting out her
views.

General Summary
The essay “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady is designed to demonstrated the demands and pressure put
on married women by their husbands and the society. The author shows what men want to see in a
good wife. She writes, “I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will
keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after
me”(Brady, par. 4). The author skillfully employs the device of repetition in order to emphasize all the
multiple duties a wife has.

Brady’s writing shows the one-sided perspective on the structure of the household and family life. By
means of rhetorical strategies such as repetition, complex sentences and definition, the author delivers
her point of view on the male way of thinking (Laury, 22). Using satire, Brady shows how unrealistic
husband’s expectations of a perfect wife can be. She writes, “I want a wife who will not bother me
with rambling complaints… But I want a wife who will listen to me” (Brady, par. 5). The author
portrays a family life as a very unfair and uneven relationship, where a woman has to take care of her
children, her house, her work, her husband and all of his needs and desires.
Brady’s essay is built in a way that, basically, makes a husband look like another child a woman is to
tend to, he is shown as a person who cannot or will not take care of himself because this is not his
duty. Brady’s essay matches the duties of the husband against the duties of the wife showing that a
woman’s everyday life is cluttered with a large range of obligations, rules and limitations in order to
fit into the image of a good wife.

Relationship to Today’s Society

Gender roles and marriage today are very different from what they used to be several decades ago, a
woman is no longer seen as an attribute of her man, at the same time, even today there are still people
that believe that a woman’s main function is to be a good wife.

It is a well-known fact that old fashioned idea about marriage and the roles of the spouses in it was
very different from the contemporary one. A wife was seen as a mainly domesticated person who was
not supposed to have a career of her own. Her main duties were to solely take care of the children, and
make sure that the house is clean and the husband is happy. This image of a good wife started to be
widely promoted after the end of the Second World War. For the period of the war, when men were
gone, women had to take over most of the male jobs (Stoneham, par. 1). After the war was over and
men came back, women started to be persistently encouraged to abandon their careers and become
housewives. Television played a big role in the process of promotion of the female adherence to her
new role airing advertisements and TV shows such as “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”, where
Harriet was either shown making food or serving it.

Many women had to become housewives and play the role of Harriet in real life. As a result, their
sons grew up having an idea that this kind of behavior was the only right function for a woman. Their
first and most important example of a female in the house was their mother, whose role was limited to
tending to the house, making and serving meals, constantly cleaning up and selflessly making sure
that the husband is happy, rested and comfortable all the time. Judy Brady’s essay points out that a
woman has to be working non-stop even when the family is going to the nature to relax or when they
are enjoying the company of guests.

The generations of men that were born and raised in such families naturally believe that women were
meant to be wives and wives were meant to take care of their husbands and homes. Feminist
movements that started to massively occur in the United States and Europe during the 1960’s shifted
the common perception of gender roles and functions and caused multiple debates and disagreements.
Logically, most men were unhappy with such course of events and turned against feminism. Besides,
many women were used to their typical roles and afraid of the new opportunities and responsibilities,
this is why they never sympathized with any women’s movements.

Personal Evaluation
Judy Brady’s essay is certainly a very powerful work presenting a new for that time perspective on the
duties of men and women in the society. “I Want a Wife” is written from the point of view of a woman
overloaded with responsibilities, housework and her job. This woman states how convenient it is to
have a wife that is to eagerly make sure that you are all the time happy, rested, comfortable and
satisfied. The author notes that under these circumstances she would like to have a wife too. Brady
appropriately employs the rhetorical strategy of repetition to emphasize the never-ending to-do list of
a wife. The enumeration of a woman’s duties is given from the male point of view satirically noticing
how spoiled and picky some men became provided with all the freedom and power of being a
husband and a man in the society.