Hi, there! It’s Ima Frawde, CPM (certified professional misogynist) here to describe the newest trend in marriage: natural wifing.
Now that natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting have reduced women to the slaves of children under the guise of copying our foremothers, we feel it is time to crush any remaining independence of women with natural wifing. After all, that’s how domestic relationships have been conducted throughout most of human evolution.
Just as mothers exist only to do what’s best for babies, wives exist only to do what’s best for husbands.
How do we define natural wifing? It has three major components:
1. Husband-led Sex
Shocked? You shouldn’t be. Nature designed women to serve as sex objects and for the sexual comfort of men. Ladies: no matter when he wants it, where he wants it, and how he wants it, you OWE him sex. His health depends upon it! Studies show that sex has a myriad of health benefits and it would be lazy and selfish of you to deprive your husband of those benefits.
Are you ever allowed to say no to your husband’s demands for sex? Sure you can say it, but he knows you really want it. Natural wives are empowered by assault, just like our ancient foremothers.
Birth control — a form of patriarchal technology, every bit as dangerous as epidurals — is not allowed. Since the evolutionarily fittest males are those with the most offspring, women should be impregnated as often as possible. Contraception of any kind would interfere with a man’s biological imperative.
Moreover, we know that authentic women are empowered by repetitive pregnancies. And don’t forget the health benefits to you! Just think of how many pesky menstrual periods you will avoid.
2. No work outside the home and no technology within it.
Natural wifing is “green” and therefore incompatible with modern appliances that deprive women of the authentic experiences of using their body parts to serve their husbands. Hands can be used to grind the flour, knead the bread and otherwise prepare meals. Feet can be used to pound the clothes while washing them in a local stream or pond and for crushing the grapes used in homemade wine.
Yes, it’s true that natural wifing involves painful, exhausting, back breaking labor, but as in the case of childbirth: women who abolish the pain have husbands who may fail to bond to them. Natural wives know that the pain of domestic drudgery is empowering!
As a bonus, natural wifing means that you and your family will be completely prepared to survive a nuclear apocalypse in exactly the same way as homebirth advocates and lactivists are!
Natural wives are not literally restricted to the inside of the home. They are free to search for nuts and berries for example as long as they baby-wear their infants while doing it. But no woman is allowed to go on a hunt, protect the tribe from attack, fabricate tools or create art. Those are male pursuits and any woman who wants to participate is unnatural by definition.
Therefore, there’s no need to educate female children beyond the rudiments of reading and basic arithmetic since they should never work outside the home and their talents should be surpressed or at least deeply discouraged.
3. Animals serve as role models for domestic relationships.
The goal of natural childbirth and breastfeeding is to copy animal mothering as closely as possible, so the goal of natural wifing should be to copy animal relationships as closely as possible. Obviously, a natural wife is part of a harem. Throughout the animal kingdom, alpha males maintain harems of females whom they impregnate on a regular basis. The males are free to mate with as many females as possible, while the females are restricted to the alpha male. Should she stray, she can be beaten and her children by another male can be killed.
Male primary relationships are with other males. Husband doesn’t spend time at home with you and he ignores your children? Why should he do otherwise? Do male bears, lions and gorillas engage in domestic chores? No, they do not! Do they care for offspring? No, again. Natural wives know better than to expect men to behave any differently from animals.
Do these three principles leave natural wifing advocates open to charges of misogyny? No more and no less than natural mothering. Furthermore, we embrace the charge. Misogyny is a fundamental principle within the animal kingdom and we are all about using animals as our role models.
Toward that end we plan to humiliate and shame any wives who refuse to follow the principles of natural wifing. Just as mothers exist only to do what’s best for babies, wives exist only to do what’s best for husbands. That’s why the Husband Friendly Hospital Initiative — designed to support women in simultaneously practicing natural mothering and natural wifing — is coming to a maternity facility near you!
This is a bit off topic, but all about ‘independence’.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-07/mothers-choosing-freebirthing-warned-about-potential-risks/10787382
OMG what an irresponsible piece of journalism. This article is wrong in so many ways it was an outrage reading it. Is the reporter that stupid to believe (or gullible) that the reason for rise in free birthing is because of limited access to midwives legal and illegal ones? I will tell them the real reason. It is because of the rise of egocentric assholes who like to BRAG that’s it! I mean really she had a birth photographer that should tell you something right there.
You and your followers are certifiable. Love how they all post about groups of people they know nothing about. It takes a strong woman to be a homesteader (which encourages all family to be around), takes a strong woman to have a home birth. And it is the woman’s choice not the mans in everything to do with children unless there is a court order.
Oh please! It’s just a form of self micro-branding that let’s some mothers swagger around with an unmerited sense of superiority.
“It takes a strong woman to be a homesteader” No, it takes a submissive one. “takes a strong woman to have a homebirth” No, it takes a stupid one.
I’ve been certified, but its not because I chose to give birth in a hospital. Turned out to be a good idea since I was going into eclampsia in the middle of labor
A: Who said anything whatsoever about homesteading? B: How many “Sane” people do you see living in a shack in the middle of nowhere? Good to know yours affords you internet access, though. Because that is so totes the spirit.
Oh come on, the Naughlers are totally sane!
Wow, somebody’s defensive.
Do you have any idea how many readers and posters here have ourselves engaged in various practices associated with “natural family living”? A lot of us are posting about groups of people we know, sadly, way too much about.
Personally, I take pride in making sure that my baby’s father is part of every discussion regarding our kid’s health, upbringing and share equal part of her care with me.
This idea that everything should me my choice and my responsibility is ridiculous, what year do you live in?
“And it is the woman’s choice not the mans in everything to do with children unless there is a court order.”
You could not be more wrong. A man does not need a court order to have a say in what happens to his children.
I know this is satire, but the paragraphs about eschewing birth control and multiple pregnancies as forms of female empowerment are central to Catholic teaching on human sexuality. I was taught in religious ed that the very existence of any form of birth control was an insult, as it implied I couldn’t control my “animal instincts.” I was taught that my fertility was a gift, and to treat any part of it medically was to conflate it with a “sickness.”
Needless to say I left the church before my first child was born.
This is definitely a thing for christians right now. I have told a few of these types in my extended social circle that, behind closed doors, my fiance and i indulge in this kind of kink too, but don’t they feel kink should remain private? The looks on their faces are priceless. Yes, I’m a total B in real life.
This basically just describes crunchy Christian fundamentalism of the “homesteading” variety (which is maybe the point). There are countless blogs, websites and books in existence to teach Good Christian women how to do everything from scratch (including things like grinding their own flour from organically sourced grain to make old-fashioned sourdough bread—no packaged yeast allowed) and as “naturally” as possible, all while having large families and submitting to their husbands wills. “Natural wifing” is an actual lifestyle choice. (Which also often involves homebirth, extended exclusive breastfeeding etc. Of course, if breastfeeding is genuinely impossible, there are always highly complicated recipes for homemade baby formulas made from unpasteurized milk…)
Yup, the white supremacists call it “trad life.”
How do you even know what the white supremacists are doing?
I read a blog called “Eyes on the Right” and another called “Right Wing Watch.” I teach at a school that has brought in the ADL to run trainings so that students and staff can recognize signs of white supremacists (hate symbols, coded language, etc.).
It’s called staying informed. You might want to give it a try.
It’s funny how so many moms who are so dedicated to doing everything the “natural” way don’t seem to realize how unnatural it is for children to be raised in a house with one or two siblings and their parents, isolated from the rest of their extended families. In a real traditional family, the mother really only has the time and energy to dedicate herself to the newborn for the first year or so before it is handed off to older siblings, aunts, cousins, etc because the next one is coming.
The homeschoolers who insist their child is learning in a more natural way are the worst. It’s not natural for mothers to dedicate every ounce of their energy towards one or two children for 18+ years. Spending time with other children and interacting with other trusted adults independently on an everyday basis is far more natural. It drives me crazy when people pick and choose their history to validate their own choices and criticize others.
If peoplejust naturally learned to read, illiteracy wouldn’t be a thing. This seems obvious on its face to me.
don’t seem to realize how unnatural it is for children to be raised in a
house with one or two siblings and their parents, isolated from the
rest of their extended families
THAT! THAT! A hundred thousand times! And on a related note, I have such a pet peeve about the idiots who claim that newborns don’t need milk because milk doesn’t come in until 3-5 days after birth (therefore, obviously, babies must not need to eat anything but colostrum until then).
I want to drop those people off in the Amazon so they can see how women close to nature breastfeed. Hint: they live in extended families/tribes in which many women are lactacting at any given time, and for those 3-5 days when mom’s not making milk, mom is mostly resting and recovering from childbirth while her sisters, cousins and friends feed her baby.
That’s how we evolved. It’s only been in the last 100-200 years that women routinely find themselves in households where they’re the only lactacting woman.
I think sexism has always had a certain appeal to the elite, insofar as cultural change threatens them with a loss of status. But once certain 1960s hippie values became accepted into the mainstream as ex-hippies became elites, the narrative of sexism had to change. So instead of traditional gender roles being a duty to spouse, religion, or country, all of whose authority were no longer universally accepted, they had to be seen as an “empowering personal choice” or, if one had to be somber about it, as a duty to the next generation.
OT but does anyone know the reason for this? I mean, apart from Brexit, could it be because of the whopping NHS bill for birth injuries?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/02/nhs-axes-personal-midwife-project
Ooh interesting. I’ll be following this. Given that it’s linked in the article with the Better Births Initiative, I’d say you’re probably right on the money and it was forcibly closed.
Glad to hear the new plans have continuity of care on the agenda though. I liked and trusted the midwife I saw in between consultant appointments (high risk of pre-e, I was checked every two weeks), and if I knew she would be my midwife in hospital, I probably would have gone for an induction instead of insisting on going straight to c-section. But not knowing if I was going to get a midwife who would listen to and respect me rather than ‘but this is how it is here and I know best’, I didn’t entirely trust them. There were a variety of concerns that led to my ELCS choice, but that one was not insignificant.
You have a particular focus on the liberal educated natural mother, but quite a few of the worst tragedies you put on here come out of the Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy arm of the natural motherhood movement. Your satire is not that far off
Sadly true! That’s precisely the comparison I’m trying to draw. It’s much easier for feminists to see that natural “wifing” is just a way to oppress women even though natural mothering treats women in similar ways.
I wonder if a double-pronged approach might work…leverage the religious patriarchy implications against the liberal feminist science deniers and leverage the “pagan-ness” of some homebirth stuff against the quiverfullers to get them to go to doctors.
Dear God. And I was about to say “Don’t give them any ideas, Dr. Tuteur!” I grew up in a fundamentalist christian home and a church that stopped just short of quiverfull. My parents didnt buy in all the way, thankfully. I’m an only child, an my mum had a high powered career. I just put the finishing touches on an MSW in May and launched a career as abtherapist in October. I still heard that shit often enough from my peers and aquaintances at church to know that The Handmaid’s Tale is just barely an exaggeration.
It’s funny. I’ve observed before that if you check out the really far out stuff on the left or right, you find it’s come around full circle to the opposite view, albeit perhaps for different reasons. So, a far left type might say that you should embrace natural childbirth/breastfeeding/nonvaccing/extreme attachment parenting because empowering women/women’s bodies are perfect/don’t trust pharmaceutical corporations cos they’re all about making money/Nature Is Perfect, don’t use those nasty drugs, while a far right type might say you should embrace those things because it’s how God made our bodies and therefore that’s the way it’s supposed to be and God made essential oils and not vaccines so use essential oils rather than the vaccines with nasty chemicals and aborted babies, but, well, it all comes out to the same daft idea that somehow technology is bad and a nice, all-natural death rate of 1 in 10 moms is A-Okay. Or something.
You are completely right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Ohhhh, interesting. I didn’t know there was an actual term for it! Thanks for the article. 🙂