by Alison Tennant

Created on: November 27, 2008

Is a "bad" wife one that doesn't dote on her husband, doesn't comb little Jill's hair every hour, doesn't wipe little Jack's bottom 3 times a day?

Is a "career woman" (an old fashioned phrase if ever there was) one who dares to spend time outside of the home, dares to supplement her husband's income, dares to hope that he will lift a finger in the house?

Then, yes, the two go together.

But, of course, the whole question is built on quicksand. We might just as well ask whether career men make bad husbands (if they're wedded to their jobs 24/7, they undoubtedly do) or whether stay-at-home women make "good" wives (automatically?).

No, a wife is what a woman becomes once she's married. Whether she's "good" or "bad" depends on what she wants out of the role and how she goes about getting what she wants - not on whether she's prepared to stay in or go out!

Does the "good wife" sit at home in poverty, making do on the crumbs her husband's manual job allows her, being so harassed by her kids' screaming that she's in a temper when her man comes home, taking to valium to calm her nerves?

Does the "bad wife" earn decent money by using her brain, does she return home revitalised by the sight of her excited children, is she in such high spirits after a varied day that she performs well in bed?

I think it's obvious that my definitions of "career woman" and "bad wife" are not compatible. To my mind, it depends on how the former sees the roles of wife and husband, and how the latter fails to put those roles into practice.

These days, a woman has options like never before. She can be a traditional "wife", she can go out to work, she can pursue a career while having and bringing up children, or she can live alone. We've got almost as many otions as good or bad husbands have!

Dare I even suggest that "role playing" is backward, 20th Century thinking anyway? That even asking this question is offensive to the scores of women who prefer to work than perform "wifely" duties or have children?

Perhaps in 1809, a career woman (then, an acceptable phrase?) would have been hounded for not cleaning her spouse's clothes, for not raising her sons to be lazy and her daughters to be workhorses, but we're nearly in 2009!

In fact the more I think about it the more I find it horribly misogynistic. If a man is so sexist that, even in the 21st Century, he is against his wife earning a salary, he deserves a "bad wife" - whatever we've decided that phrase means!

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