The Death of The Trad Wife

I can’t spend two minutes on twitter without running across an anon lamenting the death of the classic trad wife ideal and pining for its return. While I agree with the veneration of the trad wife, it is impractical to think modern women would so easily return to aspiring to the trad wife ideal. Not only has the world changed and with it the ambitions of modern women, but given how many men have succumbed to the establishment’s attack on masculinity, many modern men are not worthy of a classic trad wife.

However, I am not one to simply point out and complain about a problem, so in this article I will lay out a solution: adapting the natural male and female ideals to the modern world. But first, we have to lay the groundwork. I will breakdown the problem we currently face and the philosophy of natural ideals and strategy to adapt them to the modern world we will use to build a solution. From there, we can dive into what those modern ideals should be and how to market them.

The Problem

To understand how to create a set of modern ideals for the sexes to aspire to, we first have to understand the series of events that brought us to our current cultural landscape and caused the death of the classic trad wife.

Death of The Trad Wife Ideal

The Ideal Trad Wife of the 50s was depicted as a loyal homekeeper and matron of the family. She cooked, cleaned, and raised children. She found joy and meaning in serving her man and her family. In this way, she aspired to the ideal of the divine mother and helped create a healthy home. However, with the rise of feminism, the position of the wife was malicously characterized as one of subservience. Because of the femist focus on equality, motherhood as a position of deference was not acceptable to the modern women, and thus brought about the rejection of motherhood as the ideal to which women should aspire.

Feminism Reframed the Female Ideal

Men could have countered this by reframing the role of motherhood in a way that was more palatable and desirable to the modern women, but failed to recognize the problem and respond accordingly. Instead, feminism replaced the Trad Wife ideal with that of The Empowered Women: through professional career aspirations and sexual agency, women were finally able to ascend beyond the limitations male society had put on them and find true fulfillment. We see this in the contempt that feminists have for women who wish to aspire to the traditional role of stay at home mom, and the elevation of the girlboss who climbs the corporate ranks and lets her libido run wild.

Men Failed to Adapt

As women no longer saw motherhood as something to aspire to, many men were lost on how to convince them otherwise. Previous generations of women had been brought up aspiring to motherhood and never needed convincing, so there was no past wisdom to draw upon. This was simply a completely new cultural shift which required fresh strategies.

Normally, men, spurred on by their sexual drive and bilogoical desire to raise a family, would have eventually found ways to counter this, but unfortunately, with the increasing availability of low commitment promiscuous women and more readily available pornography, men’s sex drive was was rendered impotent. Because of this, many men felt no need to solve the problem of how to tame the modern woman and so the problem was left largely unsolved.

Men Became Weak

Typically, for a man to attract a good woman, he needs to be successful in a broad sense: healthy, good career, self reliant, and aspire to admirable ideals. However, perceiving the goal of attracting a good woman as unobtainable and finding it easy to satisfy his sex drive with easy women and porn, men not only stopped trying to attract women, but stopped being ambitious all together. With no drive, most modern men became weak, unsuccessful, and devolved into blaming women for the lack of potential mothers.

Missed Opportunity for Family Building

At some point, the hollow goals of career and sexual empowerment for women, and pursuit of easy quick pleasures for men becomes too unfulfilling to ignore. Career women reach their 30s, only to realize they desire a family but have squandered their prime years to do so. However, when these women start to seek a man with whom to build a family, their only options are apathetic men who failed to make anything of themselves or men who are successful and therefore have ready access to younger women they must compete with. Similarly, men who later discover a desire for family often find they haven’t built themselves into the man who could support one and have a hard time finding a good women to try with. This means that often the peak years for family building are squandered.

How to Create New Ideals

Now that we understand the problem stems from the feminist reframing of the female ideal and men opting out because of a failure to adapt, we can start to formulate a solution to reorient these ideals. To do this, we need to first understand that any successful ideal will be grounded in natural truth and the divine order. We can then take that ideal and frame it in a way that resonates with modern men and women.

Natural Balance

The natural and ideal relationship of the genders is harmony between the unique and complementary elements each sex embodies. We need to recognize that men and women are not equal, but neither is one superior to the other as each is suited towards different goals. While both sides find fulfillment in the successful raising of children and building a loving family, women are naturally inclined to care and nurture while men aspire to lead and provide. Therefore, men are attracted to women who are compassionate and dedicated and women attracted to men who have their own ambitions and the proficiency and discipline to obtain them.

Adapting to The Modern World

To make new ideals desirable, we need to find a way to frame these natural ideals in a way that will appeal to modern sensibilities. Specifically, modern women desire fulfillment, respect, and agency as these are core talking points for the feminists. For men, we are often dissuaded from traditional masculine traits as they are deemed toxic, and so the modern male ideal will require framing as altruistic, in service to his wife, family, community, and world at large. It is important to note that this reframing for the modern world is not disingenuous. Each gender role inherently has these elements, we are simply deciding which to emphasize and the way in which to present them so they are palatable.

The Female Ideal

The feminist ideal of the empowered career women was sold on the basis it would be just as fulfilling as a good career is for a man. That women would find respect, proof of the equality they desire, and agency, the freedom to decide their own path free from a man’s influence. If the new female ideal is framed within these elements, it will be much easier for women to understand the comparison, and the role of motherhood, being naturally desirable, will win out.

The Joy of The Family

The idea of the joyful family, a happy couple with playful children, is something so fundamental to the human experience, the establishment propaganda has been unable to destroy it. Leveraging that positive imagery of the family, motherhood can be shown to be more fulfilling than any career.

I think arguments are best done by comparing the steelman version of each. We can take the most successful version of the feminist ideal, the girlboss in her expensive Manhattan apartment, drinking a bottle of wine alone and juxtapose that with the modern trad wife, picnicking with her family and enjoying nature. While the girlboss is surrounded by all the markings of successes, it is hollow with no one to share it with. Family life, if properly depicted, will pull at the natural joy and satisfaction women feel when building a loving family.

Respect for The Divine Mother

In the move for greater equality for the sexes, women often talk about the importance of equal respect. The Feminist idea would have women believe this is achieved in the corporate world by being just as competent and successful as her male peers. But this is no comparison to the timeless respect for motherhood. For example, The Virgin Mary is a divine figure in the Christian mythos, establishing motherhood as a sacred role.

Leveraging this, the new female ideal can be framed as unequaled in its respect. The comparison between a woman receiving positive feedback from a male colleague and an expecting mother being lovingly dotted on by her husband and family. While a woman might find respect in the office, she will find true devotion as a mother.

Agency of Choice

Feminism argues that past generations of women did not have the ability to direct their lives, but were stuck, dependent on their husbands. A career would solve this problem by unlocking women’s freedom, allowing her to decide how to live her life. Ultimately, the modern trend towards greater agency is healthy but not something that requires a path apart from motherhood. Modern women, even more so than their traditional counterparts, have greater agency to make the most important decision of all: which man is worthy of her starting a family with.

This role of decisionmaker can be seen both as a sacred role in society, helping to define and enforce the bar that men must aspire, but also emphasizes that women should respect themselves enough to only be intimate with men worthy of that intimacy. By highlighting the important role that women play in having high standards when choosing a man, we drive home the idea that they have agency to choose the man they want to be with and are not controlled. This would ultimately encourage women to hold the men in their lives to the male ideal we will talk about next.

The Male Ideal

The modern men is often cruelly characterchured in modern culture as bumbling and incompetent or power hungry and corrupt. This depiction is used to justify the battle against toxic masculinity that effectively suppresses the natural male ideal. To create a modern ideal that aligns with the natural ideal while also being viable given the climate of modern society, we have to frame those ideals in a way that counters these negative stereotypes. Specifically, our ideal must be rooted in altruism. Self improvement and aspiration not for selfish personal gain, but service to the divine ideals of wife, family, and community. A man who is building himself up to provide a better future for those around him and those who will come after.

Again, this does not stray from nor diminish the natural ideal, but highlights what is most palatable in our modern culture. The natural goal of the man is providership and he aspires not only for self actualization, but for the good of his family, God, and fellow man. 

Self Improvement

Self Improvement is a common topic within the community for many reasons. A good diet, exercise, proper hygiene, style, competency, and self reliance enable men to find a healthy life in an otherwise crazy world. It is fundamental to individual success, and the success of the parallel society. If those who join our movement are encouraged to become better people and do so, it benefits the newcomer and the community at large.

In marketing the aspiration of self improvement to the wider world and men more broadly, while the personal benefits are compelling, framed as a way to be more capable to take care of your future wife, family, and community, it is hard for even those on the progressive left to find any contrarian argument that will gain traction (although God knows they will try).

Honor and Devotion

If women are to aspire to motherhood, they will want to feel secure in their relationships. My experience has been that many modern women don’t want to leave their jobs and start a family because they do not have faith their husband will be able to provide, or even stay committed over the long run. Modern women see their jobs as a safety net they can fall back if the risk of depending on a modern man fails

To counter this, the modern male ideal needs to be a man of devotion and honor. Not only a man who is capable through his work on self improvement, but who will be there for his wife and his family because of his belief in higher ideals. This aspect of the male ideal would encourage men to limit, if not remove porn, drugs, and other vices and to hold themselves to higher standards of honesty and compassion. It could even be an inroad for more men to find connection with The Divine.

Vision

As much as I talk about women setting a higher standard and demanding more from the men they partner with, this does not negate the natural truth that it is the man’s duty to lead. Strong vision and leadership are also essential to successfully attracting a good wife as the best women will want a man with ambitions and will only be more attracted if he will let nothing compromise that vision, even her. It is not so much that we force women to align with our vision, but that we must have a clear vision for what we want, and share that vision with our potential partner so she can decide if she wants to commit to us and align with our goals.

Framing this ideal for modern society requires a focus on altruism and we should encourage men to have a vision for a better future for his wife, his family, and his community. Again, this aligns well with the natural ideal as men inherently desire a sense of progress towards goals that are admirable. We are simply emphasizing the goals a man can have that will be received positively by modern society and modern women.

Conclusion

As I stated at the beginning, it is not enough that the community identifies the problems plaguing modern society, but also creates actionable solutions to solve them. While we might lament the disappearance of the classic trad wife ideal, we have the power to create a modern adaptation for women to aspire. Essential to this success however, is that men become worthy of the modern wife by pursuing their own male ideal selves. This has been a challenge given the attack on masculine traits, but again we can adapt those to be more palatable in the modern world. I do not expect everyone to reach this ideal, let alone aspire to it, but I believe the parallel society and those who would live in it should lead by example and by pioneering a better way, others will follow.