我们本周的话题是“什么是妻子?”现在我们知道，这听起来可能是一个性别歧视的问题，至少一开始是这样。为什么只关注妻子?丈夫呢?那么同性婚姻呢?为什么不做到性别中立和政治正确呢?为什么不问:什么是配偶?

 


Beside the fact that it doesn’t have the same ring, our main answer is that neither the category "husband" nor the category "spouse" is as historically, culturally, or philosophically interesting as the category "wife." In one form or another, the institution of marriage has been around for thousands of years. But but until very recently what was there really to say about husbands? You could sum it up in a few sentences. Husbands were the dominant partners in marriage, the masters, the breadwinners, the ones who could own property – including their wives. 

 



By contrast, there are all manner of things to say about wives.
 Wives used to be little more than property – material property and sexual property. In some cultures, wives were confined to the home, had little choice as to whom they would marry and could even be legally put to death for cheating on their husbands.

 

That doesn't, of course, sound much like a contemporary wife. A contemporary wife is her husband’s equal -- sexually, financially, educationally. A growing number are better educated, earn more money, and work longer hours outside the home than their husbands.

几个世纪以来，妻子们发生了巨大的变化，以至于当代的妻子听起来更像是老夫而不是老妻。当然，现在的妻子不像过去的丈夫那样支配他们的丈夫。只是当代妻子的需求和欲望在决定家庭基本事务方面至少和当代丈夫的需求和欲望起着同样重要的作用。



至少这是一个理想——即使实际情况总是符合这个理想。

但是，我们的婚姻理想已经以这种方式演变，这一事实本身就代表着进步。婚姻曾被明确地认为是男女不平等的舞台。做妻子是一种受压迫的方式。的确，压迫经常被诗歌和玫瑰装扮，并被哲学和神学教义所证明，旨在使压迫更容易被女性接受。但这仍然是压迫。可以肯定的是，对于许多女性来说，在许多文化中，包括在古老的美国的某些亚文化中，婚姻仍然是不平等和压迫的舞台。还有一些人，无论男女，都认为这是它应该保持的方式。

We think that there is lots of insight to be gained not just about wives, but about husbands and also about larger social trends by thinking about what exactly a wife is and should be.

 
We want to use the very idea of a wife as a window onto the larger social world.

 



它可能不能完成全部任务。这是因为有些婚姻可能会过分强调妻子或丈夫的想法。当然，我们在考虑同性婚姻。无论赞成还是反对，同性恋婚姻在考虑妻子的概念时至少有点令人费解。当两个同性结婚时，婚姻仍然是丈夫和妻子之间的关系吗?或者可以有两个丈夫或两个妻子的婚姻吗?


“丈夫”和“妻子”是否必须与性别和性别角色联系在一起?也许我们正在进入一个勇敢的新世界，在这个新世界中，婚姻中的角色完全脱离了传统的性和性别角色。



 Clearly, there's a lot to think about. And with the help of Marilyn Yalom, author ofA History of the Wife,we hope we made at least a little progress on the topic. But tune in and judge for yourself.