The Rules We Live By: Gender Norms and Ideal Images
In Bhubaneswar (Odisha), India, the women said that a good wife does not have to take a job, but “men whose wives contribute are happy because they feel a little relieved from their economic responsibility.” Urban men were generally more likely than rural men to voice appreciation for wives who earn income and contribute to a household’s prosperity and happiness. Nevertheless, the overall picture from the focus groups of a good wife’s economic role is quite mixed. Simple urban and rural differences in whether women work for pay or do not work cannot capture the complex realities of women’s lives. Often their quite-active economic participation may go unrecognized or even be hidden because of the status their communities attach to being “just a housewife.” Still, in many communities, a good wife may mean she earns income. The urban focus groups, more often than rural groups, mentioned the economic participation of good wives. (Chapter 5 looks specifically at working mothers and women’s economic participation.) Their discourse about working women, however, may just be glib, reinforcing expectations that women’s traditional domestic role remains the more important one. This synthesis of a good wife from men in a neighborhood of Hoang Mai District in Hanoi, Vietnam, is typical: A good wife should make her husband proud of her. A good wife is not necessarily a high income earner, but she has to have a stable and decent work. She has to be a good daughter in-law. Most important, she must be a good mother who knows how to raise her children to be healthy and smart.
In a similar vein, the men’s group in Nsenene village, Tanzania, highlighted how their town’s expectations of an urban good wife have become more relaxed and now include a provider role and activities beyond the household—in addition to traditional care duties: She does all the cleaning. She prepares breakfast. She works on the plantation in the morning. She prepares lunch. She goes to work on the plantation in the afternoon. She attends association meetings in the late afternoon. She comes back to make sure supper is ready. She serves supper. She goes to bed and should have sex with her husband.
Despite the economic role of the urban good wife, her principal priorities remain domestic and her authority is clearly subordinate to her husband’s. A good wife today, noted by men in Balti, Moldova, is likely to work for pay; she “may contribute to the family budget, but if the husband is a good provider, then she should not. Her role is to create appropriate conditions for her husband to earn money.” In urban Mongar District, Bhutan, a good wife “stays home, looks after the children, listens to her husband, and does not roam around. … During her free time, she works to earn extra income for the family. [She can] weave, raise vegetables or poultry.” An urban good wife’s provider role is also second to her reproductive roles. She will likely not work (earn income) if she has many children or her children are very young. On Norms and Agency • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9862-3
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