I was at my cousin Emily’s wedding reception, and someone spilled their drink on the dance floor. I wanted to make sure the dance floor was safe and nobody slipped on the puddle of liquor, so I asked the bartender for a rag to clean it. As I placed the cloth on the floor and quickly tried to dab the liquid up using my foot, a male voice from behind me said “You’ll make a great wife someday.”
I was taken aback to say the least. What does a woman say to that kind of statement? Thank you? Fully aware of the cultural differences involved, I simply shrugged the comment off, smiled and finished cleaning up the mess before someone got hurt.
My placid reaction needs a bit more context in order to make sense. The wedding reception took place in my cousin’s hometown in Central Minnesota. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a blast; it was the perfect weekend. However, as a cultural studies enthusiast and as a semi-outsider, I could not help but observe the interesting dynamic between the different social groups involved. The guest list was huge – well over 300! Besides my boisterous family, a large part of the crowd consisted of members of the local rural community. I appreciate these people for their hard work ethic, their genuine good will, honesty, loyalty, and much more. They are some of the most amazing people I have met. However, as an East Coast/European woman, I can only regard the culture from the outside looking in. We can get along and have fun, but ultimately, a relational barrier exists. I could not simply apply my system of values to theirs. It would be wrong. Therefore, I was not in a position to judge the comment.
Because this was a person I respect, whose cultural references differ from mine because of geography, I let his disgruntling comment slide. I knew confrontation would not serve to solve this one instance, and it certainly would have disrupted the magic surrounding Emily and her new husband Kyle’s beautiful moment of union and happiness. Every time I visit my relatives in Minnesota, though, I discover a new aspect of the culture out there that I was not fully aware of. This time, it was marriage. Although somewhat aware of it previously, I had not quite realized just how prevalent marriage at a young age is. I had never felt like more of an outsider. Everyone my age seemed to be married or on their way to be. And here Anna shows up all single and untethered. Marriage is a concept so distant from my everyday reality, that I was slapped in the face by what nowadays in my culture is considered out of the norm.
The experience stirred up a vast array of emotions. On the one hand, I felt pure joy for the newlyweds, tolerant of the local custom, and even somewhat inadequate for my lack of significant other. On the other, I felt vehement against marriage, all of my hatred of sexism bubbling to the surface. If the man who made the comment had been someone I knew from my own community, I probably would have blown my feminist war horn and charged into battle against such a misogynistic foe. An awkward combination of acceptance and refusal.
It got me thinking, and I took apart the statement.
“You will make a great wife someday.”
The certainty of the future tense imparted a sense of inescapable fate. It almost sounded like an imperative, as if I had no choice – or else I would fail as a woman. It was stated with such certainty that all other options were obsolete, and it assumed that I would tacitly comply. I will not take this “will” willingly.
“You will make a great wife someday.”
The statement subsumed the definition of a good wife, as if it were a universally understood concept. But how does a wife qualify as good? Based on the circumstance – my cleaning the floor – the statement clearly implied that great wives are good at housework, that some sort of servile reflex distinguishes the good ones from the bad ones. And who are the bad ones? Ones who do not serve their husbands unquestioningly? Who do not take care of the cooking and the cleaning and all of the domestic chores that women have worked so hard to free themselves of? Even if wives are very active in household duties, the fact that those duties define a “good wife” riled me up.
“You will make a great wife someday.”
The word turns its ugly head and sneers at me. Is the status of wife really what is in store for me? No. What if I don’t want to be a great wife? What if, instead, I want to be an incredible woman? Or simply an incredible person? Maybe I’ll be a good wife on the side. But fulfilling my womanhood and humanity in my own way is the only kind of fulfillment I can fathom.
Perhaps I do like to clean. But in my mind, this trait is dissociated from the status of wife. I’ll just be a good person – with an immaculately clean house.