Wifework What Marriage Really Means for Women

by Maushart, Susan

• ISBN13: 9781582342023
• ISBN10: 1582342024
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-06
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

Men get one thing from marriage that women never do: they get wives. Husbands and wives may say they are committed to equality, and indeed, many believe that they live that way. Yet, whether they are employed or not, wives still perform an astounding share of the physical, emotional, and organizational labor in marriage-everything from housework to 'sex work'. 'Wifework' is shorthand for this relentless routine of husband maintenance, and it's the reason that a married man is so much better off than a bachelor. He does fewer chores, is happier, healthier and generally more satisfied. A married woman, by contrast, will perform two to three times more unpaid physical, emotional, and organizational labor than her husband-and for a fraction of the rewards. Women today initiate three-quarters of all divorces, and wifework, Maushart argues, is at the core of their disillusionment. If family life is worth saving, the job description for wives will have to be rewritten. Bolstering her own personal experience as a twice-married mother of three with substantial research and broad statistical evidence, Maushart delves into history to explore the theoretical and evolutionary reasons behind marital inequity. Her arguments are passionate, but she keeps her sense of humor intact throughout, producing a work that is lucid, provocative, and resonant.

Author Biography

Susan Maushart was born in New York, She moved to Australia in 1985. Her first book, Sort of a Place Like Home, won a Festival Award for Literature at the Adelaide Festival in 1994, and her second, The Mask of Motherhood, was published to international acclaim. She lives in Perth with her three children.

Table of Contents

Wifework: the job description	p. 1
Of marriage, metamorphosis and rotten eggs	p. 19
Meet the wife: the origins of wifework	p. 33
The monogamy trade-off	p. 46
Why do we do it to ourselves?	p. 57
Rising expectations and diminishing returns	p. 73
Mars and venus scrub the toilet	p. 88
Believing in pyjamas	p. 100
And baby makes two and a half: the myth of shared parenting	p. 116
Equality go bye-byes: parenthood and partnership	p. 128
The wifely art of emotional caregiving	p. 144
Giving, receiving...getting depressed	p. 156
Not tonight, darling: wifework and sex work	p. 172
Excuses, excuses: why wifework persists	p. 190
Sleeping with the enemy	p. 205
Surrendered judgments	p. 215
Whose wife is it, anyway?	p. 230
Notes	p. 248
Bibliography	p. 265
Index	p. 278
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