The ghost of the 1950s housewife still haunts modern relationships.

In the grand, ongoing negotiation of modern partnership, we like to believe we have evolved far beyond the rigid, gendered scripts of our grandparents’ generation. We speak of equality, of shared responsibilities, and of a 50/50 split in all things. Yet, the specter of the traditional housewife, with her prescribed set of duties, still lingers in the shadows of many otherwise progressive relationships.
These are not the overt demands of a bygone era, but a set of quiet, ingrained assumptions about who is ultimately responsible for the domestic and emotional labor of a household. They are the outdated “wife duties” that many modern women find not just unfair, but deeply chauvinistic.