my wife

I just read an article about the death of the “wife”. The woman who was caretaker, home-keeper, companion, the one that took care of stuff so that the man could do his job of supporting the family seems to be gone. The article ended with the comment : “perhaps it is the end of ‘man and wife.’”

It is hard to find much that makes me sadder.

My wife is a “wife.” She has always taken care of me and my family. She has always cooked and cleaned and made life better for me. Although she was mother to my children, her first loyalty has always been to make my life better. She is my homemaker. I have always known she was available to me to make life better.

My  mother was the same way, as was her mother. Both of us came from a nuclear family where the father worked all day and came home to a woman who took care of the home front. She was always there when the kids got home from school, she always had dinner ready in the evening, the house was always clean, she was, in the old words, a “boon companion,” a “helpmeet.”

It is getting harder and harder to find those now. I have noticed that more women are leaving the work force to raise their children, but of course, they are denigrated by the media. As one very well known neurologist told my wife once, you are too vital a woman to sit at home. To him, she needed to be out doing something “productive” in life rather than keeping my home.

I really thought about smacking him, except that he was an old man. He was also foolish.

She has given her life to the care of me. And I know that it is selfish of me to want her to continue, but at the same time, she wants to also.

She has quit a job a couple of times in our lives when we really needed the money because we felt we needed her more. Once when she quit was when I went back to college for a second degree. We were friends with some of the faculty because we were the same age as most of them. Their wives worked outside the home also. When Ella quit, they were amazed. How can you get along, they asked. We replied, we just scale back.
We do not need as much as some think.

They watched and we didn’t die. We didn’t starve or go bankrupt. We didn’t eat out, or buy a bunch of stuff. But we did all right.

After a while, one of the teachers’ wives quit also to become a full time wife and mother. Reactions were mixed. On the one hand, it has always been normal for the wife to be at home in nearly every culture in history. On the other hand, they lost an income.

I have always been proud of my wife. She is attractive and presentable. She is a good cook, even though she doesn’t cook much anymore. As she gets more disabled, I have taken on much of “her work.” But she is still my homemaker. Where she is, is home. It has always been that way and always will be. When she is gone, home will be gone.

My son doesn’t know that, nor does my son-in-law. Society in general has fooled them into thinking they need more stuff. So both wives work. Most of society has also been duped into thinking that.

Would I like to have more money? Yes. It would be good. But not at the cost of my home.

I appreciate and love my wife. And will do just about anything to protect her.

After all, she is my home.