I Want a Wife by Judy Brady Essay

In Judy Brady’s essay, “I Want a Wife,” she examines why she would like to have a wife. Brady believes that a wife performs all house chores and the husband does nothing, but to expect the wife to do everything for him. Brady tries to persuade the reader to look at a husband viewpoint of what a wife should be. The essay was written during the early 1960’s, during the second wave of the feminist movement in America. Brady is pushed by certain reasons to write, “I Want a Wife” to show the humanist humor.

And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it” (Brady, 1971, p.2). It is as if she takes on the role of the husband without the title of it; she is still described as a wife but she is a wife taking on another wife for

In “I want a wife,” Judy Brady’s use of irony to add judgment of what a men perspective of women is. The irony is used thought out the essay and how that the author was talking about wanting a wife throughout the essay while being a wife is kind of adding sarcasm, along with irony. The use of irony in this essay help send a

In Judy (Syfers) Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, she expresses her opinions in a satirical commentary that offers hypothetical criteria for an ideal wife, with an underlying message that deals with how people should be grateful for all of the deeds and chores that women do. Brady utilizes the strategy of

In "I Want a Wife" Brady is stereotypical of what she believes to be the roles of the husband and wife. Also Brady's essay is one sided, she never states a side that would argue her viewpoint. While Wilson shows two clearly stated sides of his argument.

In the short story ?Why I want a wife? by Judy Brady, she goes into detail what being a wife is like. The tedious details of day to day activities, the strain and hard work of being a ?good wife?, and the unappreciated

Prior to describing what a man will expect from a wife, Judy Brady establishes her credibility within the first couple sentences of her essay. Brady states “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother” (1). This quote is significant since Brady makes it clear in the beginning of her article that she has firsthand experience of being a wife and a mother. Her experience allows her to have a vast amount of knowledge on the

When Brady classifies herself as “a wife and mother” she is automatically labeled with the responsibilities that were enforced by societal beliefs of that era (Brady 229). Women were considered inferior to men and struggled to gain equality. Husband's required too much of their wives as to their physical needs; “I want a wife to keep my house clean.” Their social needs, “When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends.” In addition, their sexual needs, “I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied.” (Brady 229-230). Women did all these things everyday to please their husbands, although they received no fringe benefit in return. The cultural values that were viewed at this time emphasized the discrimination and equality that Brady desperately wants her audience to

In her essay titled “Why I [Still] Want a Wife”, Judy Brady argues that wives are automatically assigned the role of primary caretaker and homemaker in a traditional marriage. Brady states that in her marriage, she is expected to earn an income while her husband pursues a higher education, she is expected to perform all parental duties exclusively, tend to all housework, her husband’s sexual needs and desires with no regard to her own, and be a hostess while keeping quiet and doing all the above pleasantly. In her style of writing, Brady appears to be hostile and her entire piece comes across as one sided and unfair. While I agree that marriage should be based around inherent equality, I disagree with the way Brady chooses to present her argument as she presents the conditions of her marriage as universally applicable. I do not consider her argument as effective as it could be if Brady chose to be less biased and contradictory in her presentation. If Brady wanted her argument to appear more persuasive, she should have refrained from telling the reader that she does not like being exploited while at the same time telling the reader that she wants to have someone to exploit. Brady presents the conditions of her loveless marriage that is lacking basic respect as universally applicable which is unjust. With her style of writing, Judy Brady leaves her essay open to disagreement. She could have prevented this simply by being less biased and generic with her references to what it

Brady uses strong word choice to create an ironic and sarcastic tone. The text contains a personal story that references the narrator’s newly divorced male friend who is already looking for a new wife. The narrator responds to the situation by saying “It suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife.” The narrator mocks her male friend by saying that after witnessing and analyzing his current situation, she all of a sudden realizes the advantages of having a wife, which makes her want one as well. This produces an almost uneasy feeling within the reader. As the mood and tone of the essay suddenly shift to sarcastic, any ideas previously discussed become invalid and cannot be taken seriously. The text ends with the statement “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” By closing with this unanswered question, the reader is left to interpret the essay however they see best fit. The reader is left to contemplate whether or not to give in to society and continue to promote these impractical standards made for women, or stand up and work to make a change. The author, who is a women, freely mocks the

Another disagreement I have with Brady is that she makes it seem as if the duties she is listing out wife duties, she does not support her statements at all which make it seem as if only she encountered these events such as when she says, “I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course studies...I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.”. This makes it seem as if most, even all husbands will go back to school and have their wives do their class work for them when it may have just for Brady.

She essentially discusses how she does all of these things, but doesn’t get much in return. Another example of pathos in this essay is when she talks specifically about the sexual relationship that a wife and husband have. “I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it.” In this quote, Brady compares the sex that a wife has with her husband to another chore that she does. She shows that there is no mutual emotion or desire between them and that it is more of a duty of a wife rather than a pleasure. Essentially, she compares herself and any other wife to a sex puppet who is just there to service the husband with little to no joy. These two examples make the reader sympathize with Brady and the common housewife because of all of the responsibilities that they have as well as how they get little to no pleasure out of what they have to do. Lastly, Brady’s hasty tone shows her resentment towards divorced men as well as men in general. This allows the audience to understand her feelings on the topic of gender dynamics and it forces the audience to feel that way too.

Throughout this article Brady uses ethos, logos, and pathos to illustrate her opinion that the wife does too much in a family. Brady connects with her audience by relating to what was expected of them back in the 1970’s. She states reasons to why she wants a wife and lists what she says a wife would do for her. Lastly, Brady connects emotionally to her audience by

In paragraphs three through seven, Brady provides the reader with what she desires in a wife. Through repetition and tone, she shows the reader the unrealistic roles of a wife.

In this satirical article, Brady expresses the difference between the roles of women and men in the 1970’s by stating men’s point of view on women and women’s roles in society. Throughout her article, Brady emphasizes the roles of women. For example, women could now “work and...takes care of the children when they are sick”. Comparing the 1880’s to the 1970’s, there has been a big improvement. Many women had jobs outside their home, but still were responsible for most housework and childcare while their husband’s only responsibility in a marriage was to go to work and earn money to support the family. Society’s expectations allowed women to work outside the home to support college education for husbands; however,women had to know how to balance their time between their children and their jobs, making sure that their husbands “cannot miss classes at school.” During the 1970’s, women were still oppressed in many ways and had to follow society's expectations in order to live up to the men’s view of women’s roles in society. Even though society’s expectations of women had improved since The Awakening, most of women’s roles had stayed the same. In the article, Brady specifies how once a husband is “through with school and has a job, [he expects the] wife to quit working and remain at home so that [she] can more fully and completely take