Journal #3

Irving's story "The Wife" contains a few different views regarding women, economics, and marriage. First, the story basically describes a woman as someone who works in the house cooking or cleaning most of the time. This idea is known as the cult of domesticity and it was popular around this time and also had a brief revival during the 1950's. Nowadays, it's offensive to say that women only belong in the house, but in Irving's times it was not uncommon. The story also says that women should be always loyal to their husbands even in troubling times. In the story, Leslie thinks his wife will leave him because they are suddenly poor. Infact, the opposite thing happens, his wife becomes happier and he doesn't know how to react. It's safe to say that in today's times it's more likely that someone will walk out of a marriage because of financial issues, it seems like many things are based on materialism. Regarding marriage, Irving says in his story that a man is basically born to have a wife and start a family, and a single man is never truly happy. Regarding economics, Irving depicts the average American as someone who has enough money to be happy. However, just like in the story, a man is unhappy when he turns poor, whereas a woman is happy just to be with her man.