The "Tradwife" Movement vs. The Church
Feminism runs deep
Angry Elder’s Wife: Did you hear what they were teaching in the youth class Sunday morning?
Elder: No, was it error?
Angry Elder’s Wife: They were discussing this new movement called tradwives—it’s a push for girls to embrace traditional views on being a housewife and staying at home. I find it ridiculous that in this day and time we would be supporting this old-fashioned trend.
I’m telling you right now we will lose young people over this. Girls don’t want to hear this garbage about staying at home. We should be encouraging our young people to go to college and get a career.
Elder: I’ll talk to the other elders about it.
Angry Elder’s Wife: You need to do it and do it quickly before all our young people leave.
There is a movement that is quietly gaining momentum that will likely find itself at odds with many congregations very soon. It’s called tradwife—a term used for traditional wife or traditional housewife. A tradwife is someone who believes in and practices traditional sex roles and marriages.
According to Wikipedia, many “tradwives believe they do not sacrifice women’s rights by choosing to take a homemaking role within their marriage.” Thankfully this movement is catching on with many young ladies and it is growing.
If that sounds like a harmless thing to you then you have not been paying attention to what’s been happening in many congregations. Radical feminism has infected the hearts of many Christian women.
Yes, we know Titus 2:5 commands older women to teach younger women to be homemakers—but the reality is, feminists have sought after and leaned on any other verse in the Bible to support women having independent careers (i.e., “Lydia sold purple!” they shout, quoting Acts 16:14). As a result, most congregations stopped teaching and promoting homemaking 3-4 decades ago. And the effects have taken root like a deadly cancer.
Today, the very women who should be teaching Titus 2:5 to younger women never actually practiced homemaking.
Instead, most left the home and made two income families the norm. These ladies are now elders’ wives and deacons’ wives—and most have no interest in saying their choices in life might have been wrong. In fact, they are likely to defend the path they took, encouraging young ladies to be “empowered” rather than be a traditional housewife.
My wife will tell you she was indoctrinated with feminism before we got married—and she had no idea the internal struggle that indoctrination would cause later in her life. This was after attending public schools and obtaining a business degree from one of our Christian colleges.
She admits that this worldview of feminism made being a homemaker much more difficult after we got married. By her own admission it took several years of Bible study and prayer to overcome this worldly indoctrination.
In Genesis 2:18 it says, “And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” The KJV version uses the expression, “I will make him an help meet for him.” The ESV says, “I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Stop and honestly ask yourself what a “helper” to a man would look like.
Our attitude in the church for the last 20-30 years has been: “We can help, but we want our own independent careers! And if you don’t allow us to have our own independent career then you are a misogynist pig.” And so, we continue to hang a millstone around our daughters’ necks by strapping them with debt and encouraging them to embrace an independent career.
Want proof that this “tradwife” movement in the church is going to be a problem? Stop and ask yourself what has happened to the patriarchial view in the church. Or ask the young ladies in your congregation what they aspire to be when they grow up and see how many say, “homemaker.” Or look to our Christian colleges. How many Christian colleges have majors in homemaking?
I am asking the older generation to make an honest assessment:
*We haven’t done marriage well. (Look at the divorce rate)
*We haven’t trained up our children well. (Look at how many young people are leaving the church).
*We haven’t done the home well. (Look at all the broken homes, even in the church).
Maybe it’s time to treat radical feminism with spiritual chemotherapy and get back to fortifying the home.
Do I support the tradwife movement? Absolutely! I believe it is moving back toward the direction that God intended for the home and family. But will we allow it (and even promote it) in the church? That remains to be seen.
Notes
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Bro Brad, when you were here in 2005 and the team of preachers students and some of their wives came, an older sister told me the young wives idea of cooking was take it our of the freezer and pop it into the microwave. She was teaching them the basics of real cooking while you were here. Those girls are now in their mid 40s.
I have to say I think some people are yearning the tradwife thing but it's really shallow by itself and they have tons of drama that are more secularly minded. You can't get the 50s and before from a modern, somewhat reactive, movement like that. As you pointed to in scripture, it really is a development of the church. Outside that it becomes this relative end-goal concept. In a sense I agree with her but obviously not for her reasons. The 50s weren't exactly very Christian either. If you see the films there's almost an adolescent awkwardness. I mean it may just be me but it can't be that far off. Anyways I do think there's a better calling because that's easily infiltrated by politics and other secular movements and then more politics will get us caught up in this web where we're serving idols.