Let me preface this piece with a disclaimer: I have a husband. I feel it is necessary to start with that because A) besides my decades long experience as a gender researcher unpacking roles such as “husband”, I have personal experience of living with the aforementioned gender role for the same amount of time, and B) I am talking about the “role” here not the “man”- I obviously love the man to have spent more than half my lifetime with him (you can read more about the paradox of how I hate marriage but I’m married in my memoir Rants of a Rebel Arab Feminist). But back to the point- my feelings about the “role” of husband (as defined and assigned by patriarchal norms and instilled in our religions, media, relationship advice talk, bedrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms) is not so much love as “seriously, what the fuck man?” Like, the bar cannot keep ending for you at exactly the point it begins for me.
And it’s not just me. Every woman I know that is married to a cishet man has the same list of grievances (yes, it is a cishet man thing). It’s as if we’re reading the same script; “I love the man, but damn why can’t he pick up after himself/ watch the kids for a night without a tantrum/ remember to book the doctor’s appointment/ etcetera.” There is a deep profound collective realization that while we love the men we’re with, we do not love the role they’re assigned that renders them effectively useless and make us exhausted by proxy.
A husband is not expected to pick up after himself or anyone else, watch his own kids, remember appointments- it is not part of his role description- yet it is the foundation of a functional marriage. That is why when he does any of those things, he expects praise or worse- sex– to reward his above and beyond use of basic functioning adult skills. And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re considered “lucky” if you have one of those basic functioning adult husbands because the norm is that your husband is your “first child.” Which should be an insult- to children. Research shows that husbands cause more daily stress to women than children!
When basic adult competency of washing the dishes is framed as a grand romantic gesture, it proves the husband role is rooted in privilege, not partnership. And don’t even get me started on the “just tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it” husband- as if he cannot see the dishes in the sink or the pile of laundry on the couch. If a woman has to “delegate” a list to her husband to get him to clean, she isn’t a partner; she’s an unpaid project manager. And technically, if a man wants to be “household leader/head” HE should be the one noticing what tasks need to be done!
And yes, I hear the naysayers- I hear what you’re saying “but, but, but men built this world! He has a 9-5, he also can’t cook and clean! You ungrateful bitch!” I’ve heard that more times than the number of women in this world who also have a 9-5 and come home to a second shift. Having a 9-5 is the lamest argument and should never excuse a man from familial obligations- given that he signed up for marriage just like he signed up for his 9-5. If he couldn’t balance work and family, he should never have gotten married. Simple as that. Continue building your great world without a slave at home which makes it all possible, while you deny your reliance on her unpaid labour. I’m proud of being the ungrateful bitch who recognizes that and calls it out on every occasion- because being grateful for a world that men built by using women’s unpaid labour as a pillar is not the hill I will die on.
And even if you’ve both agreed to adhere to a so-called “traditional” dynamic where man is the breadwinner and women stays home to bake the bread- it still isn’t a fair play. A man working outside the house gets paid, gets set hours per day where he clocks in/out, gets weekends off, gets benefits, retirement, and can resign whenever he wants. If he’s running his own business, he gets the added joy and fulfillment of self-actualization, being your own boss, and living a life on your own terms. A woman’s job in the house is unpaid, no holidays or weekends, no benefits, 24/7 until she dies. What does she get out of it besides “a happy husband and kids”? They’re nice repayments in theory, but practically speaking- how many men are willing to go to the office every day and get paid in the currency of “happiness” from their employers? The answer to that is zero. Because if that were acceptable no man would be earning an income for his labour.
Being a man who is a useful contributor to society does not make your role as a husband useful by extension. Those are two separate things that often get gravely confused. And in fact, the greatest men in the world are often the worst husbands. Because the traits that make a man successful in the workplace (assertiveness, competitiveness, selfishness, unwavering focus) are destructive in a marriage. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a walk together with some of the greatest men that proved to be “useful” to the world but the worst humans at home.
The great man/ worst husband paradox
Some of the greatest men who built the world- from science to art- were notoriously known for being the worst husbands. But the latter isn’t often a focus of discussion when we talk about the genius of those men- because no one cares if those men are horrible to women as long as they’re good to patriarchy.
King Henry VIII– while shaping English history, is considered one of the worst husbands in history. He divorced, abandoned, and executed his wives often when they failed to produce male heirs (the blaming of women for not birthing a “son” prevails to date even when we now know that it is the sperm that determines the gender of a baby).
Fritz Haber was a Chemist whose work saved millions from starvation (Haber-Bosch process). His treatment of his wife, Clara Immerwahr (the first woman to earn a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Breslau) was disastrous. After she died by suicide (some speculate partly due to his work in chemical warfare) Haber left for a business trip the next day. The work of men doesn’t stop, eh?
Mahatma Gandhi- a global icon of peace- was a harsh and demanding husband to Kasturba Gandhi (she herself was a prominent Indian political activist, freedom fighter). He enforced a vow of celibacy without her consent and denied her life-saving medicine (penicillin) based on his personal beliefs, even though he later accepted Western medical intervention for his own health.
Albert Einstein, a genius. A man who understood the relativity of time yet stole his wife’s time to fold his laundry. Einstein was unfaithful to his first wife, Mileva Marić (a brilliant peer physicist and mathematician), and their marriage was marked by misery. He demanded she adhere to a list of humiliating conditions for their marriage to continue (such as ceasing conversation upon request and no expectation of intimacy). He cheated on her often. Mileva ended up fleeing Berlin on the eve of WWI- choosing a literal war zone over the “peace” of his domestic contract.
Pablo Picasso- legendary artist- and his treatment of women is legendary for its cruelty. He famously stated women were either “goddesses or doormats”. He was emotionally abusive, manipulated his partners against one another for sport, and burned through relationships so thoroughly that two of his former partners eventually died by suicide.
Diego Rivera- a titan of 20th century art. But I know him only through my love for his wife’s art Frida Kahlo who described him as “the worst accident of her life” (even though she was involved in a catastrophic bus accident at age 18 that caused severe, lifelong injuries, including damage to her spine and pelvis, which led to chronic pain and multiple periods where she was bedridden and unable to walk properly). Diego was chronically unfaithful, most devastatingly having an affair with Frida’s own sister. His toxic masculinity and violent temper made their marriage a cycle of destruction.
F. Scott Fitzgerald- known for “The Great Gatsby,” a literary giant, and an abusive husband. He admittedly drained his wife Zelda’s (a talented writer and painter) mental health while continuing his own affairs and drinking. This pattern of pushing women to madness and then accusing them of “hysteria” for their inability to endure abuse in a marriage is prevalent worldwide. Ironically, the moment you call them out on their bullshit is the moment they begin to label you crazy- coincidence much?
And we don’t even have to go so far back- the device you’re currently holding to read this article is likely made possible by Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, known for transforming technology. He was a distant and often cruel partner and father. He initially denied paternity of his daughter, Lisa, leaving her and her mother (artist Chrisann Brennan) to live on welfare while he was already highly successful.
I could go on, but the point is clear: this is not a one-off accident or outlier case. You might relate to my words because your partner might be one of those men, your ex-partner, your father, your son, or your friend. Those “great men” are all around us. But in favour of their greatness, we do not focus on their vileness. Women are put through the worst forms of violence by men who are supposed to be their most intimate partners, their husbands. What did those great men/ worst husbands contribute to their homes besides heartbreak and misery? And why is that overlooked in favour of what those men contributed to the world? We cannot afford to ignore the overlaps because how you do one thing is how you do everything. The injustices of the world prevail because unjust men built the world.
Yes, I know-not all husbands are abusive. But all of them are allowed to get away with it by patriarchy should they choose to be. Their greatness as men building the patriarchal world is not affected by their violence at home and perhaps the latter is a requirement to sustain the former. To keep women at home and broken, to steal women’s energy, labour, even their revolutionary ideas (which many of the aforementioned men have been accused of too)- is one of the greatest ways to build the patriarchy.
“Behind every great man is a great woman”
We all know that idiom originating in the first half of the 1900’s designed to give recognition to the often-unseen support provided by wives and mothers. However, it really isn’t flattering as much as it is a confession on how the world is built on women’s oppression by pushing women behind men. And it’s not just the reliance on women’s unpaid labour that “builds men”- it’s also reliance on their paid labour. Historically, it was common for wives to work to pay for their husband’s education- a phenomenon that was particularly prevalent in the United States during the mid-20th century. Washington State University was one of many institutions of higher learning to recognize wives’ contributions to their husbands’ education by awarding them with “Putting Husband Through (PHT)” degrees. Those women weren’t only providing unpaid labour at home, they were also “providers” in a way that we’re taught to only recognize men as.
The world wasn’t built with men’s competence; it was built with their weaponized incompetence. Read that again. And one more time. The only reason men have been building the “prestigious” parts of the world is because they have been exempt from the foundational dirt work required to sustain the world by feigning helpless incompetence and calling it “women’s work.” Of course, you have the time to sit and think about theory of relativity when you never have to worry about the laundry!
Men who cannot fold their laundry, who don’t know how to cook, who cannot “babysit” (i.e. parent) their own children, who cannot hear their newborn cry for a feed in the middle of the night, who are the most useless partner a wife can ever wish for- actually deliberately develop that “skill of uselessness”. To pretend one is oblivious to the basic skills it takes to survive in a household is not ignorance but a form of power control. A husband must remain “blind” to the dirt and “incapable” of the laundry because if he admits he can learn it, he admits it is work and a learned skill (not an instinct of women). If it is work, it is valuable. If it is valuable, he owes you for doing it. If he owes you (instead of owns you) then you become equal partners. And if you’re equal partners, the fantasy of male superiority collapses. Along with its master architect; the patriarchy.
In a patriarchy women are the ones that are kept in position to “owe men” it’s never the other way round. Patriarchy teaches us that as women we owe men our bodies, our wombs, our housework. We give men sex, babies, an orderly home. What do we get in return? A husband who is free from the trouble of unpaid labour; free to pursue a career and climb a ladder along with other men who have “built this world.” He is willing to share financial crumbs with you to keep you alive- not out of owing you- but so that you stay alive in servitude to him. But it’s rarely spelled out this way for women- instead, it’s called “happily ever after,” and we’re primed from childhood to aspire to it.
Romanticizing women’s unpaid labour as natural duty and gatekeeping women’s access to money ensures women owe men their entire lives but never own their living. Because once women own their living, they won’t see the “natural duty” of exchanging their unpaid labour for crumbs as logical. They will realize it’s a fraud. A woman will stop accepting to cook for a man so that he can give her a seat at the table, and start asking; why am I not allowed to own a table when I’m the one preparing everything on it? Hell, why aren’t I allowed to own the entire house when I do all the work in it?!
And do you know what absolutely makes me want to smack my head against the wall? When a woman adheres to that agreement and says “ok I want a man who’s a financial provider and I’ll take care of the housework/unpaid labour”- she is then effectively labelled a gold-digger. Because women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t- the system ensures you never win- you’re kept in that mental state where you “owe” men but can’t expect the same in return. She’s a gold digger if she relies on his paid labour -but if he relies on her unpaid labour so that he can pursue a career- he’s called a provider, not a gold digger.
The evolution of the “husband”
Let’s travel back in time for a minute to understand why the role of ‘husband’ even exists. In early human hunter/gatherer societies (where we spent 95% to 99% of our history) men and women functioned as co-providers without rigid gender role divisions. They both hunted and gathered (the myth of the male hunter and female gatherer has been debunked by modern archaeology). Our ‘nature’ is nowhere near the current norm of man-works-outside/woman-works-inside; that arrangement is a modern dynamic born from patriarchy not nature.
When we shifted from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle to agriculture 12,000 years ago, there was a gradual geographic split in labor caused by a storm of biology and technology. A rise in birthrates due to lifestyle changes and high infant morbidity and mortality physically tethered women to pregnancy and childcare, while the invention of the plough (which required upper body strength that is difficult to add on top of pregnancy/childcare) moved the primary food production into the hands of men. Because men worked on the land, they transitioned from equal partners into ‘husbands’- which originally meant “a man who has land and stock”. Eventually they turned into the legal owners of the stock and land they worked on. They also began controlling women’s sexuality (virginity culture) to ensure they birthed a ‘male blood heir’ to inherit this property. This created the emergence of patrilineal lineage (giving children father’s last name) and a deep cultural preference for sons; daughters were often seen as a liability because they could not inherit the land and were instead destined for the same roles of childbearing and rearing their mothers were assigned.
You can see the system starts to crack here. By shifting from a partnership of survival to a hierarchy of ownership, the role of ‘husband’ fundamentally changed from a companion to a warden. When a man’s primary identity became that of a property owner, his wife and children were legally reclassified as part of his estate rather than his equals. This transition transformed the household from a shared domestic space into a micro-dictatorship, where the husband’s need to secure a ‘pure’ bloodline justified the systemic oppression of women’s movement, sexuality, and legal rights. The ‘man who has land and stock’ didn’t just manage said land and stock- he managed humans, setting a precedent for centuries where dominance was mistaken for protection. This is where the paradox of the great man/ worst husband emerges.
This system still lingers, despite attempts to shift the image of the husband from ‘owner’ to ‘romantic partner’ in more recent times (Thanks, Disney!). We still face the structural hangover of the older system through guardianship laws that restrict women’s autonomy and the lack of criminalization of marital rape, which challenges the idea of a wife’s body as a permanent asset belonging to her husband. These ‘lingering effects’ prove that while the language of marriage has changed to one of love, the legal and social architecture was originally built for control, making the transition to true equality a modern, ongoing struggle.
This brings us to the evolution of the role of ‘husband’ in the modern era, which has reached a bizarre dead-end, or what I define as “useless husband”. The ‘property’ or the ‘household’ for most of us has shifted from farms to houses and apartment complexes- from ownership of land to landlords, rent, and mortgages. Homes have evolved. Homes no longer require men to plough fields; they require domestic labor (cooking, cleaning, childcare). But the ‘husband’ has not evolved to meet the changes required for managing and owning a home. He is leaving his wife to shoulder a ‘second shift’ of labour in a system where the husband is satisfied with being a domestic dependent. However, to keep the power hierarchy and to keep his wife thinking she’s the one who needs him, he gaslights her to believe she’s the one depending on him to ‘provide and protect’ just because he has a 9-5 and will get up to face the hypothetical event of an intruder smashing the door.
If we open our eyes wide enough we’ll see that the actual provider and protector is the wife and mother. She not only provides unpaid labor and protects her children, but her role has also evolved to give her access to the paid workforce. Women now take part in the ‘Public Sphere’ but men have not integrated into the ‘Private Sphere’ at the same rate. This is what sociologists call the ‘Stalled Revolution‘. Even in dual-income households, women still perform the majority of the ‘cognitive labor‘ or mental load (planning, scheduling, emotional regulation).
Many women feel more empowered with their role now but also more exhausted than their grandmothers did, and some blame feminism for this ‘double burden.’ The logic goes: ‘Feminism promised me I could have it all, but now I just have twice the work.’ However, again if we open our eyes wide enough we’ll see that the problem isn’t because feminism fought for women’s right to enter the workforce; it’s that the social structures of manhood didn’t change to meet women there. Patriarchy tethers ‘husbands’ to being served at home or being ‘above’ domestic chores. Women are working 40 hours a week for a paycheck and then coming home to a ‘1950s husband’ who wants to be served. The struggle is real, but it’s a symptom of a one-sided evolution. Patriarchy is the system responsible for this stagnation, not feminism.
Yes, ALL husbands are useless.
Maybe you feel that your husband, if you have one, isn’t useless. Maybe he has broken cycles and learned to perform the duties of domestic work. Maybe, like mine, it took going to hell and back for both of you to change the blueprint of ‘husband’ that has been passed down to you for generations. And it’s a team effort to do that- because when my husband comes home from work and starts cooking lunch for us, it wasn’t just him that had to learn to cook. I also had to learn to resist the feeling of “wife guilt” that made me want to get up and “help” him- or worse, takeover completely.
But even with all the domestic work my husband has perfected- he is still a useless husband. Why? Because technically, he isn’t being a “husband” as defined by patriarchy; he’s actually being a “wife.” Let me rephrase: the only way for husbands to stop being useless is for them to learn how to be wives. It took a period of trial and error, but I realized that while I love the “man”, I do not love the “husband.” The only reason my marriage survived is because we decided we’re both being wives. And this realization is backed up by research which shows that the happiest demographics are single women and married men. Why? Because single women don’t have a husband, and married men have a wife. Conclusion? To be “happily married” everybody needs a wife.
This sentiment was perfectly captured in Judy Brady’s iconic 1971 essay/poem “I want a wife”, which remains devastatingly relevant today (an excerpt below):
“I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced, when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying… My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?“
Today, women are realizing that if they want husbands at all, they don’t want husbands who are useless; they want husbands who are wives. And because so many men are failing to live up to that, we’re ending up with higher divorce rates (70% of it initiated by women), male loneliness epidemic (often the result of men relying solely on a wife for emotional regulation- thus without a wife they’re lonely), and the 4B movement (a South Korean/ globally spreading feminist movement and lifestyle of refusal- specifically no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no childbirth with men). For the first time in history, a record number of women are expected to remain single. Projections suggest that by 2030, 45% of women aged 25–44 in the U.S. will be single and childfree. The patriarchy wants you to think that is the worst thing to happen to women; but it is in fact the worst thing to happen to men whose (domestic and social) survival is tethered to women.
The realization is stark: man has transitioned from equal co-provider, to the “husband” who has resources (land and stock), to the “worst husband” who is an oppressor that owns women and children as property, and finally to the “useless husband” who is a net drain on women’s resources and lives. The only way for a husband to save himself in the modern world is to return to the “traditional” equal partner he was- and following the blueprint of the wife is the way to get there. Otherwise, husbands are inevitably facing extinction as the data shows that, for women, the cost of having a husband- in labour, health, and happiness- no longer outweighs the benefits. In sum, women are collectively realizing that “husbands are useless”- but will husbands prove, collectively, that they can be useful enough to realize that?
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Farida D. is an Arab gender researcher and poet, studying Arab women’s everyday oppressions for over a decade. Check out her books!
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Excellent reflection. Thank you!
What is most disturbing is that the majority of women have embraced this situation as normal.
Yet, slaving, is the term indeed.
I have a T-shirt on which I engraved: “Womanhood is not Slavery”
And another: “Unpaid care work is not female”
We need to create more women circles to discuss these matters and to learn and unlearn from one another.
Build a critical mass of women who will say, enough is enough.
You are spot on- I love the quotes on the t-shirts! I hope we continue having those conversations, it’s how we unlearn patriarchy. It is a taught system, the same way we learn it through conversations, we can unlearn it.
Wow! This was definitely a fascinating article. I agree 100 percent with every word, and I am glad I came across it. Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to read and I am glad it resonated with you!
I adore everything you write. In the paragraph about women being labelled gold diggers when they rely on men’s paid labor (while providing unpaid labor), I would another point. In the event of dissolution of the marriage contract, all men are quick to defend that everything is the husband’s. He worked for it, he should have it all, and what did the ex-wife do to accumulate assets and wealth? How dare she ask for spousal support, trying to take even mroe from this poor man? That’s why so many women leave long marriages with literally nothing: no assets and on top of that, no career to then provide for themselves. And don’t get me started on the link with violence, why so many men decide they no longer want to be married, instead of getting divorced, went and still go to great lengths to commit women as insane or murder them. Just so they don’t have to share the assets they so firmly believe are theirs alone.
Thank you for adding this Thais- spot on! This defence that “everything belongs to the husband” in event of a divorce while the woman’s work was in unpaid labour not only tethers women to remain in abusive marriages (and then BLAMED – WELL WHY DID YOU STAY?) but also is another symptom of a system that places ZERO value on unpaid labour yet ironically the system cannot hold itself up without said labour!
Is there a term we can use for this “if he relies on her unpaid labour so that he can pursue a career…he’s called a provider, not a gold digger.”
Or just someone taking advantage of unpaid labour e.g. lifestyle leech
I have been sharing this via my social media page- I call those men who use women’s unpaid labour (so they can have the freedom to pursue careers) gold diggers not providers. I think the label reversal can be even more powerful than having a new label for those men- because it exposes the holes in the provider narrative we’re fed.
I thank social media for having stumbled up on this masterpiece. You gave voice to the the thoughts of women around the world who cannot articulate the discomfort they feel in every bone!
Thank you for your kind words and validation. We will be free!
I am a useless husband, but I’m a pretty damn good wife, and proud of it. My wife and I have a long history of sharing the house duties with me taking on the majority of the cleaning, laundry, finances, and pet duties and she doing most of the cooking, child educating, and child rearing. I had the outside job, but ensured that we received equal allowances in separate accounts from the household budget. Since retirement, I have taken on the appointment scheduling for myself and almost all of the transport stuff. The shared duties works for us and is aligned along our interests/skills and avoiding the stuff we each dislike most. I agree, everyone needs a good wife — especially our wives!
I’m also not one to look up to anyone based on fame or public accomplishments — but after reading this article, I will definitely ask the question about anyone I might start to admire for their accomplishments — ‘How do they treat others in their private lives?’ If the answer is ‘badly’ then that needs to color my perception of their public persona.
Thank you for sharing this Douglas! More men must speak out in that way, with all honesty, so we can begin to mend the damage caused by patriarchy. Cheers to being a great wife!