Introduction

Introduction The Wife Industry The premise of FYI’s Married at First Sight (2014– ) was stark but sim- ple: agreeing to leave matrimonial decisions up to so-called science, the show’s six principals acquiesced to marrying a stranger, sight unseen. Relying on metrics such as in- depth personality profiles, attractiveness rating scales, and home visits— or what the show repeatedly termed “sophisticated instruments”— Married at First Sight’s experts (a psychol- ogist, a sexologist, a sociologist, and a spiritual adviser) selected mates from the show’s contestants. As implied, prospective spouses literally meet at the altar. Rationalizing her appearance on the show, one partici- pant argued that dating is difficult because etiquette has changed. People use text messages or online communication, she lamented, losing that face- to- face connection. “It’s a serious experiment,” confirmed sociologist Dr. Pepper Schwartz. “This might be an antidote to a chaotic dating system that is really tiring people out.” Performing an end run around the vagaries of choice and intent, as well as sparing participants the awk- wardness of failed first dates, Married at First Sight is perhaps the answer for time- crunched professionals weary of dysfunctional dating climates: in short, the show models how one might outsource the process of find- ing the “one.” Married at First Sight provides apt introduction to Wife, Inc., thanks to its reliance on heuristics of efficiency, a supposedly scientific approach to coupling, and a relentless emphasis on the work that participants must undertake to establish their marriages as legitimate. After a month of marriage, spouses decide if they wanted to continue or abandon the arrangement. The show, I assert, is a reminder that American marriage culture has been radically reenvisioned in the twenty-first century, an alteration we can credit in part to the notion that marriage is the sort of business that must be gotten down to, much like one might decide 1 Leonard_i_255.indd 1 1/19/18 12:12 PM 2 | Introduction it is time to secure a full-time job or purchase a house. Orchestrating a rationalized system for the procurement of a mate, Married at First Sight elevates an individual’s readiness for marriage into the sole reason that she or he should undertake the commitment. In Wifey 101: Everything I Got Wrong after Meeting Mr. Right, the female counterpart in one of the only two couples to have succeeded in operationalizing Married at First Sight’s promises of marital longevity (despite the show’s five- seasons- and- counting run) matter-of- factly asserts that a successful marriage needs no more than time, effort, and a will to succeed. Writing about her decision to agree to a “scientifically arranged, legally binding blind marriage,” author Jamie Otis divulges that post- wedding there was still more work to be done: “If I wanted my marriage to last, I had to learn to be a good wife and even better in- law quickly and efficiently.”1 Theorizing the rationalized understandings of marriage newly em- bedded in the cultural fabric of twenty- first century America, Wife, Inc. attempts to untangle them via an in-depth analysis of female media culture. Specifically, it attends to popular television, film, and literature, as well as mass- market news, women’s magazines, new media, and advice culture in order to understand these developments. While the systems I reference involve both men and women, the position of women vis- à- vis marital cultures is the more pronounced of the two, particularly as the term “wife” has gained increased traction. Though the prevalence of the moniker might suggest otherwise, for women especially, the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past forty years. For one, the inequities with respect to labor, economics, and domesticity that once bespoke women’s disadvantage have given way to a host of social upheavals and liberal progress. The sort of second-class citizen designation that wives once faced—a positionality that helped to ignite a feminist critique of the marital institution during both the first and second waves— has receded in a postfeminist era where women’s gains are widely touted. Understandings of the need for equality in both the home and in professional spaces have been largely mainstreamed though not, of course, necessarily realized. As a result, nowadays it feels downright anachronistic to suggest that a woman’s sexual needs could only be met in marriage, that men are necessary for procreation, or that women must do the lion’s share of the emotional, domestic, or physical work it takes to support a functioning household. Both romantic and practical, Leonard_i_255.indd 2 1/19/18 12:12 PM Introduction | 3 American marriages are widely understood to be based on equal part- nership, economic solvency, and romantic love, renegotiations that have benefited women in particular. Part of what is so shocking about Married at First Sight is that it appears to ignore these advances and suggest instead that marriage is a decision best left to experts, a seemingly antiquated notion that calls on histories of matchmakers and arranged marriages. Similarly retrograde about the show’s premise is that ours is a culture schooled on the belief that marriage should be a choice, rhetoric now as entrenched in the gay marriage movement as it is indebted to postfeminist conceptualizations of female individualism. At the same time, the fact that a series of at- tractive twenty- and thirtysomethings would sacrifice this near- sacred right to choose their partners based on love and literally marry the per- son that a set of strangers has selected for them because they are so eager to get to the experience would seem to counteract the widespread perception that women’s dependency on marriage has sharply declined. Publications as run- of- the- mill as Cosmopolitan have not been afraid to suggest that marriage is no longer as important a commitment as it once was. The cheekily titled “I Do, or Do I?” which ran in August 2013 surveys a host of marital experts and young women, reaching the con- clusion that women are “delaying marriage or, increasingly, not getting married at all at a rate that is only accelerating.” The article suggests that women are “ambivalent about marriage in their twenties,”2 an obser- vation that echoes demographic data. According to a 2014 Pew Cen- ter report, 20 percent of adults older than twenty- five (about forty- two million people) have never married, a figure that sharply contrasts data from the 1960s when only 9 percent of Americans fell into this category. Support and confirmation for these recent statistics can also be found in the reality that men and women wait longer to marry than they once did: the average age for a first marriage is twenty-seven for women and twenty- nine for men.3 This data appears to corroborate the widely held belief that marriage is less socially relevant, less necessary, and less common than ever. Ac- cording to the 2010 census, only 20 percent of American households consisted of a married heterosexual couple with children, statistics un- derpinned by realities like rising cohabitation rates, increasing ages for first marriages, what was then the lack of gay marriage as an option in Leonard_i_255.indd 3 1/19/18 12:12 PM 4 | Introduction Figure I.1. Married at First Sight uses tongue- in- cheek humor to promote its practice of marrying willing strangers. many states, and the mainstreaming of the notion that marriage is no longer a necessary precursor to reproduction. These dwindling numbers have not, however, lessened the stronghold that marriage occupies in the symbolic imaginary, nor do they indicate an obviation of the capa- cious interest in and energy that surrounds the institution. As histo- rian Stephanie Coontz wrote in 2013, “Rumors of the death of marriage are greatly exaggerated. People are not giving up on marriage. They are simply waiting longer to tie the knot.”4 The perception that marriage no longer matters is also hard to maintain if one makes even a cursory foray into the discourse of popular American media, and particularly if one looks at the role of heterosexual women in those spaces. In fact, wives dominate the terms and concerns of twenty-first- century female popular culture: courting eagerly, marrying lavishly, and divorcing scan- dalously. More specifically, wives write memoirs and advice books, start businesses based on wifedom, and star in fictional and reality television shows that centralize their position as wives. Rather than slide into oblivion, the wife has morphed into postfeminist media culture’s most favored icon, one endlessly utilized to frame discussions of female life cycles. In this milieu, the wife is at once historically diminished while also more important than ever. It is the contention of Wife, Inc. that wifedom and marriage remain the preferred modalities for postfeminist media to investigate, prescribe, and proscribe female life cycles. Differently put, depictions of wives are the foremost way in which American culture currently negotiates norms Leonard_i_255.indd 4 1/19/18 12:12 PM Introduction | 5 of femininity. In part, this dominance of marriage culture arises from its seemingly obvious role as a step on the path to maturity, adulthood, and reproductive futurity. Consider the backbone of any conventional love story: love and romance lead to marriage and children. With the advent of gay marriage as a national right (although one that is admit- tedly more precarious under the Trump administration), marital tra- jectories have, if anything, only become more ineluctably etched in the popular consciousness. Marriage persists as the preferred teleology that structures not simply individual lives, books, films, or television shows, but also entire genres such as chick lit, romantic comedy, and reality dating shows.

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