The Surrendered Wife

The Surrendered Wife is a book by Laura Doyle, a self-proclaimed "feminist and former shrew," purporting to expound a solution to troubled marriages, such as the one experienced by the author's parents.

Great and terrible
Books
On our shelf:
v - t - e

Contents

As is typical of such works, it spends hundreds of pages stating what fits in one sentence; in this case, a couplet written in 1723 by Samuel Wesley the Younger:

“”Gently shall those be rul'd, who gently sway'd;
Abject shall those obey, who haughty were obey'd.[1]

Or, in prose form, as interpreted by Doyle: "Shut up and be a nice little doormat for your husband to walk all over; then you won't have any marital troubles." Some more specific examples include:

  • A woman should not tell her husband that he missed the freeway exit to Interstate 5 in Seattle, instead letting him drive all the way to BostonFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.[2]
  • A woman should let her husband feel that he is in charge by giving him total control over the household finances, then from time to time begging for pin money getting an allowance payment. This is apparently true even if the ladyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg has done Ph.D.-level work in economics while her husband makes a mess of the bank accountsFile:Wikipedia's W.svg and tends to run up really big debts.
  • A woman should not suggest that her husband get therapy, lest she be a mistrustful busybody and control freak. (But this, of course, does not applyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg to husbands that are in need of a certain sort of therapyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.)
  • A woman should not buy her husband's clothes, even if he has only slightly more fashion sense than an English professor.
  • A woman should "allow herself to be vulnerable," thus making intimacy the priority rather than control.

Influence

The book, being a New York Times bestseller, is popular enough to have caused the emergence of a contingent of surrendered wives, who under Mrs. Doyle's direction have set up a network of seminars throughout the U.S. taught by specially trained instructors. For $20, you too can learn how to fall in love all over again![3]

gollark: Stop them when they actually directly incite violence, I guess, but not before.
gollark: Later: *more speech inevitably censored*
gollark: "We must censor your speech slightly! Look, there's an outgroup there, it's totally necessary""What if you start doing more?""We totally won't! Also outgroup. Look, this is a bad outgroup"
gollark: So would shutting down far right forums, tronzoid.
gollark: We don't live in one. Talking about one doesn't make it happen.

See also

References
  1. Wesley, Samuel the Younger. The Battle of the Sexes, 1723. Quoted by Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette, October 8, 1730.
  2. She seems to be missing the point that wives were specially made to nag their husbands until they ask for directions, thus enabling them actually to reach their destination. (Editor's note: Is it just me, or do we have a misandrist in the room?) (Nah, the Bible claims woman was created to be a help to man. Nagging is just a form of helping)
  3. http://www.surrenderedwife.com/surrendered_wife_seminars.html
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.