Is Being A “Submissive Wife” Really A Good Thing? We’re Breaking Down What This Actually Means

Picture this: It’s 10 p.m., and you’re at an airport in a foreign city. You’re holding a crying baby when it’s announced that your connecting flight has been canceled. Do you feel confident taking a seat and letting your husband figure it out? You two will certainly be communicating about the situation and ideas will be thrown around, but are you yelling over the baby’s cry and telling your husband what to do or that his plan is bad? Or can you truly just take a step back and let him come up with and carry out a plan?

I would argue that, as a society, we have beef with the term submissive. At first glance, the term submissive may appear too closely related to the terms inferior, less than, and even oppressed, but its actual definition is far from that. The term “submission” comes from the Greek word “hupotasso,” which means “to place under.” The term under may be problematic here, but that is only because our contemporary brains associate “underness” with oppression or a sense of less than. If you think of it as the relationship between a leader and its people, the submissive people are not oppressed – they’re cared for, and the leader is accountable to them. In a similar fashion, when a husband leads, his wife and children are cared for. For this to occur harmoniously, trust must be established between the couple, and let’s not forget that trust is earned. 

Ultimately, women are the main benefactors of this dynamic. When there is a good leader in charge, she is well cared for. When there is a weak leader, she is the one to voice this, and the follow-up conversation will be as beneficial to her as it is to him. 

Why Does “Submissive” Have Such a Bad Connotation? 

Somewhere around the ‘70s, when the Battle of the Sexes and The Feminist Revolution swept against the traditional expectations of a wife, the waters got murky, and we got lost. Somewhere in the journey for equality, we lost sight of the value of gender roles once attributed to women. This cultural upheaval meant to stand up for the women they considered repressed, women who were unable to leave financial abuse, domestic violence, and many other tragedies occurring in their marriages. The ‘50s housewives became the symbolic standard of those women, but surely, just as nowadays, not every marriage in the ‘50s was an abusive one. Many wives who stayed home caring for their children, homemaking, and didn’t hold professional jobs were happy, fulfilled, and well respected wives. For others, the challenge was that this life was offered with little to no other choice. It’s fair to say that their husbands had those same limited choices.

During The Great Ballerina Farm vs. The Times War, Hannah Neeleman was perceived by many as a submissive wife. The hit piece and its dramatic ripples across social media gave us a glimpse into what society thinks about submissive wives, or at least what they perceive as such. While Hannah referenced choices she had made at a personal and professional level, the journalist highlighted in a negative tone all the times Hannah had let her husband make a decision. But would a marriage in which women make all the decisions be a good, fair, and helpful idea? 

What became clear is that the current wave of feminism praised women’s choices and celebrated the freedom to make such choices, and yet, Hannah is an example of how, with the same force, it puts down women when they choose to let their husbands make choices. The details associated with decision-making between a couple are not for the world to dissect and approve or disapprove of, but we certainly know that strong teams are built on mutual trust. 

What The Stepford Wives Have To Say 

A popular but misleading understanding of submissive wives has been best represented in Ira Levin’s novel The Stepford Wives. The wives at Stepford are women who were once only career-minded and professionally successful, but that comes to an end when they move to Stepford, a suburb in which every wife is perfect in a wrong sense of the word. The women are polished, in perfect shape, and they never have a bad day. But the shocking factor is that their husbands hold remote controls connected to the women’s brains that render the wives under their control. 

The beauty of the film comes later on, when Joanna (Nicole Kidman) reminds her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick) that an I love you from a wife who is being controlled is not the same as an I love you from a wife who is not. Her husband admits that he had felt in constant competition with his wife, which is what prompted his desire to control her. This tender moment of honesty between husband and wife led them to reconsider their dynamic and establish a new relationship based on trust.

Once the competition between husband and wife ends, Joanna learns that the kind of leadership she had been employing in their relationship hurt and emasculated her husband. The problem wasn’t that he was not in charge; the problem was that he could sense the fact that she did not trust him. Had the roles been reversed, this would have caused equal resentment since, when it comes to marital love, no one should feel mistrusted or bossed around. As a result of this experience, Joanna learns to listen to her husband and give him the space to make decisions, even when they would not be her first choice. 

Joanna learns the hard way what being a submissive wife truly means: It’s ultimately a wife who trusts her husband. A wife who, instead of parenting him, sees him as someone she trusts to make decisions, to lead, and perhaps most importantly, she trusts his ability to care for and protect her. As a result of this renewed confidence in her husband, Joanna is at the receiving end of a deeper sense of love and mutual respect, which fosters a harmonious and supportive relationship.

What Marital Trust Really Means

It’s important to point out that Joanna didn’t start trusting her husband out of nowhere – he earned that trust. Walter went from being pushed around (initially by his wife and later by other men) to being a virtuous leader. In many ways, it was Walter’s positive change and proof of character that allowed Joanna to be a submissive wife. It takes two to tango, and if a man’s character doesn’t give you reason to trust him, then a wife won’t have the option of being submissive. But if a man wants a submissive wife, that is something he earns through his own character, and it’s an important aspect of being an effective leader in the relationship. 

And let's not forget that submissive wives do not have a problem voicing their thoughts and opinions. It’s crucial for a couple to be able to influence each other, because no matter how aligned a couple may be, it’s impossible to always agree or have the same perspective. As they say, where two think too alike, someone is simply not thinking. It shouldn’t be a matter of his way or her way; in marriage, it eventually becomes their way, and whatever their way is, it’s established through years of mutual feedback and joint processing. And the data backs this up. Research conducted by marriage experts John and Julie Gottman has found that couples who are influenced by each other have better long-term marital success. Why? Because appreciation and respect are everyone’s love language.

A good husband appreciates his wife's input, as it enriches and complements his own views. It’s not about complying, giving in, or allowing the other’s thoughts to come first, but about acknowledging the fact that there's value in the other’s point of view, even when (I may say, especially when) we neither agree nor like the proposed point of view. This can be difficult at times, but just like many other things, it’s a matter of practice. Marriage surely provides plenty of opportunities to practice this, and with time, it will come with more and more ease.

Closing Thoughts

Being a submissive wife is not exclusively about gender roles or staying home with children; instead, it’s a disposition toward your husband. It’s about trusting him, appreciating him, and respecting him. This is not about him being above and a wife being below. A submissive wife is a wife who trusts her husband to lead, and based on that trust, husband and wife are mutually accountable to each other. Not to mention, they are empowered by each other.