I Was A Tradwife: It Nearly Killed Me

The bottom line for the tradwife: she may be the major breadwinner and the more productive member of the household, but she owns nothing. The whole idea springs from what is claimed to be a biblical stance that the man is the absolute leader of the household. Thus, he is the one fully accountable for every action that takes place under his (to-be-undisputed) leadership.

I admit it: I could not put down Yesteryear, a novel by Caro Claire Burke, about a woman, Natalie, who became the perfect “tradwife.” She, with her husband, manages a 500-acre organic farm, competently bears multiple children and equally competently rears them, bakes the bread, fixes gourmet meals, lives in total and joyous submission to her husband—all while managing to post multiple exquisite videos and photos to her millions of devoted (and frequently angry and hateful) followers.

In the novel, Natalie discovers she has become an icon for many young women who want to escape “the maze,” i.e., trying to balance career, romance, childbearing, and sanity at the same time. So they idealize the “he’s in charge, making all the decisions” lifestyle, leaving her free to delight in domesticity, endless pregnancies, natural childbirths, well-behaved homeschooled children—all clothed in natural fibers and, again, fed on perfectly baked homemade bread and gourmet meals.

Natalie’s Reality As The Perfect Tradwife

It’s all sleight of hand, of course. Natalie’s reality? Two nannies, a full-time videographer to keep her Instagram account humming and profitable, income from various “authentic” items she sells, a large amount of undocumented labor on the farm, an utterly incompetent husband—all funded by a massive amount of money from the incompetent husband’s father, intended to enhance his political career.

More of Natalie’s reality? The farm, house—all assets—were 100% in her husband’s name. When he found out that the money she was making from her massive Instagram sales was being funneled into a secret account Natalie had set up, he reminded her that he was the unquestioned head of the household and that all income she earned was his—and his alone—by default.

And there is the bottom line of the tradwife: she may be the major breadwinner, the more productive member of the household, but she owns nothing.

Why? OK, time to get theological here: the whole idea springs from what is claimed to be a biblical stance that the man is the absolute leader of the household. Thus, he is the one fully accountable for every action that takes place under his (to-be-undisputed) leadership.

Male Headship Unpacked

Here’s how the all-male leadership of my church described it to me in my tradwife days: as long as I stayed safely submissive to my husband, if God, for some reason, became displeased with me, all I had to do was duck—and the wrath of God would hit my husband, not me.

So, let’s unpack that statement:

• First, God is full of wrath. Well, for most people—except for those who pronounce God’s wrath upon others- they get a free pass.
• Second, God likes to punish people.
• Third, God doesn’t care who is hit, as long as someone gets hit for any perceived transgression.
• Fourth, the husband, as head of the household, is the only one in full communication with this wrathful God. Everyone else in the household must go through him.
• Fifth, any transgression by anyone in the household means the male head of that household gets punished.
• Sixth, since punishment inevitably hurts, the male head of the household exists within a powerful incentive to keep everyone tightly in line and to control every action, thought, and intention. Without that control, the male will suffer—badly.
• Seventh, that type of incentive happily feeds any nascent (or not-so-nascent) control needs of the husband.

Now, since seven is considered the perfect biblical number, I shall move on to ask: can you see why being a tradwife might indeed be a death sentence to a highly intelligent, biblically literate woman who was, in her early middle age, starting to question every single thing that had been handed down as “this is the Word of the Lord?”

But question it I did. And the deeper my theological studies went, the greater my questions became—and the more condemnation was heaped upon the hapless male who was supposed to be keeping me under control.

Death Became The Preferred Option

Bless him. He was in an impossible spot, but I was not able to recognize it at the time, nor was he able to appreciate the depth of my spiritual agony. For me, I found myself at this crossroads: either death or divorce.

For several years, death seemed the preferable option—divorce was the unforgivable sin, and I really, really, really didn’t want to be cast into the lake of eternal conscious torment that only a sadistic God could invent. With the unendingly patient help of three women—none of whom knew each other but who, collectively, linked their arms around me and held me—I eventually decided to choose life and leave. But I am aware that the repercussions were major.

Among other things, the pastor of the church where I claimed membership called me and told me I was “an evil and unrepentant woman.”

Not one of the greatest moments of my life, and yet… it was freeing. That door slammed shut. I found new doors and learned how to open them, grabbing all the courage I had to walk through them.

From Passive To Active

As I write these words, I think about what it means to write them in the active voice. In other words, it would have been far easier to say that “doors opened for me” instead of “I found new doors and learned how to open them.”

Moving from the passive—“I’m not really responsible for everything because that is the man’s job”—to the active—“I have to choose which doors to open and walk through”—meant changing every single thing that had been pounded into my brain in my own journey to be the perfect “tradwife.”

And yes, I understand the pull of such a way of life for women. It is one free of true responsibility: the only choice she has to make is to be fully submissive to her husband’s wants, needs, and desires and never think an independent thought.

Sadly, it also means a never-ending denial of the very things that make us human—that glory of the creation story: male and female, made in the image of the endlessly creative Holy One. The very act of total submission ultimately smothers true creativity and, in the process, smothers what it means to be human.

So I walked away; I hurt many in the process; more turned their backs on me. I wish there had been a different solution, but as long as one’s theology teaches that God is both male and full of wrath, women will be forever caught in fraught submission.