"I Want a Wife" is an admirable essay because of the daring nature the writer has when addressing the issue of the common conception of what a women’s place. Her cynical tone is prominent throughout the essay, drawing attention to the plight women have felt about their positions in the family unit and in society in general. This approach to writing her essay was daring because it could be perceived as wining about the “mere duties” of a woman. Her repetitive nature gives example after example of the plights women have faced due to their husbands treatment for years, detailing the independence and goals women have lost because of gender role as a wife.
I don’t admire how utterly one-sided the essay is. It sounded like a never ending rant that depicted that all women were unhappy, and all husbands were cruel. There was no happy side to it; there were no examples of the joys of motherhood. The smallest task, for instance, like taking the kids to the dentist was equivocated to what sounded like slave work. There seemed to be large exaggeration of how abysmal certain duties were. Also, there was no conclusion at the end that stated what to do instead of having a servant for a wife. We understand that there is a problem with the way wives are treated, but how do we deal with that? The author doesn’t answer.
The essay is relatable to Medea for many reasons. In the play, Madea exemplified many of the exploits felt by men that were written in the essay “I want a Wife.” Jason used Madea for the wifely duties, taking care of the children as well as the husband himself without any sort of thanks from Jason. Then when Jason leaves Madea for another princess, it is comparable to the idea Brady points out that men think that they can leave their wives if something better comes along, and the old wife will be o.k. with it, Oh and they also have to “take the children and be solely responsible for them so that (the husband) am left free. This is relatable to Madea because obviously a women won’t be o.k. with this treatment and madea wasn’t o.k. with it either.
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