What We Women Really Need in a Marriage is a Wife!

All the married ladies in the house, I have a simple question for you. In your marriage, who is the one in-charge of maintaining a social life, keeping up social interaction with friends and family and making sure birthdays are remembered, festive greetings are dispensed and keeping track of the developments of the lives of near and dear. Ah, now that we are clear that the ladies are in a majority on this one, it might as well be an acknowledged fact that women are the ones in a marriage who take on the bulk of the emotional labour.

We’re the ones saddled with the listening, caring, organising, coordinating, and all the drama that accompanies this job function. It must be so nice to sit with one’s feet up, and let the drama unfold around one and be completely detached from all of it.

While the male partner in a marriage (I write primarily from the heterosexual perspective of a marriage, for the simple reason that this is my personal experience), might be great at managing the kids in their extracurricular sporting activities, or helping with the groceries, etc, it is the little nitty-gritty that goes into managing the day-to-day that they seem glaringly oblivious too. The keeping in touch with family, remembering birthdays and anniversaries, all the coordination of pick up and drop, school PTAs, play dates and what have yours invariably is hefted onto the daily schedule of the wife. As a friend said wryly the other day, as she juggled between two children to be picked and dropped to different sporting activities and dinner to be made, groceries to be shopped for, and more, “What I really need is a wife.”

The truth of her words struck home. We really could do with a ‘wife,’ I thought. We’re the ones saddled with the listening, caring, organising, coordinating, and all the drama that accompanies this job function. It must be so nice to sit with one’s feet up, and let the drama unfold around one and be completely detached from all of it.

Emotional labour is exhausting, unpaid and often unappreciated work for the most.

Emotional labour, distinct and different from the drudgery of the manual labour we input into the physical maintenance of home and hearth and the labour we undergo to procreate, also, unfortunately, falls into the lot of the women in a marriage. Emotional labour is exhausting, unpaid and often unappreciated work for the most. Of course, it is something that just seems to come to a woman’s lot because we are demarcated as the caring ones, the ones who tend to others, the ones who micromanage. “Worry work” as the New York Times called it in an article by Judith Shulevitz, is work we take upon ourselves as women and work we often hold onto grimly, even though it saps us to the core. We grumble about it, we wear it with grim determination like hair shirts of penance, we lacerate ourselves with our busyness.

Why does this happen?

Most of us have grown up seeing our mothers do all the emotional work in a marriage, and believe consciously or subconsciously that we need to be the same. Apart from work pressure, this additional unpaid emotional labour can often quite stress inducing.

Why are men only too delighted to outsource the minutiae of emotional labour to us and watch on placidly as we run ourselves ragged juggling the infinite balls we throw up in the air, and often see some crash onto the floor, splintering across the tiles. A primary reason would be conditioning. Most of us have grown up seeing our mothers do all the emotional work in a marriage, and believe consciously or subconsciously that we need to be the same. Apart from work pressure, this additional unpaid emotional labour can often quite stress inducing. If you’ve probably felt yourself teetering on the edge of an emotional burnout, this could be one of the factors that is contributing to the stretched too thin feeling.

How does one get rid of this lopsided distribution of emotional labour in a marriage?

A lot of emotional labour is about micromanaging and the pressure to be perfect, sometimes, it might just be enough to let go, and let the family take responsibility for sending out their thank yous, for remembering birthdays, for making those weekly calls.

The simplest things, it would seem. Delegate, ask for help, say no, don’t take on more than you can handle, they say. Easier said than done, most probably. We are hardwired to guilt-trip ourselves so hard we smash our noses in if a birthday wish is not made, if the day is not scheduled perfectly, if the menu is not planned to a T. A lot of emotional labour is about micromanaging and the pressure to be perfect, sometimes, it might just be enough to let go, and let the family take responsibility for sending out their thank yous, for remembering birthdays, for making those weekly calls.

Well, I know I need to be more sanguine about things and fob stuff that doesn’t interest me gently onto the spouse’s broad shoulders. Or perhaps, as my friend said, I need to find me a ‘wife,’ someone who will manage it all for me.

Also Read: Women are Happier Being Single When Compared to Men by Kiran Manral

Kiran Manral is Ideas Editor at SheThePeople.TV