The Real Housewives...of Japan

When searching the word "housewife" online, nearly all related articles are about a TV show of some sort. Reality TV or dramatized tramp fest, the term housewife has taken on a whole new 21st century meaning.

In the 1950's, the American housewife was revered as a paradigm of chastity and virtue. A true joy for her husband when he arrived home after a long day of work in need of a cocktail, a foot rub and a hot, home-cooked meal. Everything was on time and with a smile. For a complete guide to The Good Wife's Guide, please read the May 13, 1955 edition of Housekeeping Monthly.

Of course, as soon as women were given the same liberties and opportunities as men in what was once a strictly patriarchal society, this guise of marital perfection folded. The idealistic sense of a housewife, sitting as pretty as strawberry cake on a dessert plate, adorning her home with love and her husband with a seemingly perfect life, became more of a hindrance to a woman's reputation and potential to actually make something of her life that didn't taste like apple pie or smell pine fresh.

Now, we have a media barrage of the modern day housewife plastered all over our TV screens, and nothing about them resembles the former paragon of femininity and wholesome living women once took pride in. Today, housewives in America are seen to be spoiled by their husband's obscenely exorbitant success and don't hold the same values that were once the delectation of a wife's life.
However, since moving to Japan, I have seen the role of a housewife in a completely new light. In fact, I could even venture to say that Japanese housewives have been warped back to 1950's America and instill those wholesome values in their lives to this day.

It is my belief that everyone in Japan does their work with honor and a sense of purpose. From the grocery clerk to the man I see picking up garbage at the park every, single morning (it is still questionable whether or not this is actually his job) to the sweet and mighty housewife.

As a housewife, there is presumed power over the finances and the sex in marriage. The men make the money and then the women distribute an allowance. They decide when sex will be given and they do so sparingly, so as to maintain a delegated puissance in the relationship. But, what makes me respect them more than American housewives, or at least the caricature of what American housewives have become, is that they take care of their families with the same sort of pride we saw in good ol' Betty Homemaker, sans antidepressants and a potential closeted lesbianism to spite their husband's furtive infidelity.

For me, the housewife life will never be. But, I am respectful of those women who do choose this path here in Japan because, like most professions, it's done with diligence and a true sense of function in support of the lives of many children and their husbands, so that they may never be without a bento box for lunch.