wifedom
wifedom noun: the condition of marriage for a woman.
Noun
wifedom (uncountable)
- The condition of marriage for a woman.
- I have seen a procession of monks, with a nightmare of faces, wearied, dejected, purposeless, hopeless, when not brutalized with the traces of furious rebellion against their world, and in that woful panorama of debased human nature I see the figure of what we condemn women to, when we bid them...1869, Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler, Woman's Work and Woman's Culture: A Series of Essays, page 359
- "In your view of wifedom,” I began, “is the wife to acknowledge having a personality and will of her own, or do you see her as simply being responsive to her. . .her husband?1991, The Winged Dancer, page 159
- A woman's devotion to meeting the needs and/or desires of another, as if they were a marriage partner.
- We suspect that Mr. Dixon has exaggerated both the extent and intensity of the defiance of common sense as well as common decency which spiritual wifedom implies.1868, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance
- There the motive for concealment was removed, and the apology of a spiritual wifedom ceased to exist.1871, Mayne Reid, The Wild Huntress; Or, Love in the Wilderness, page 161
Examples of wifedom in a sentence
- Wifedom is a job, she argued, and the only approved one available for half the population.1994, Dale Spender, Weddings and Wives, page 27:
- As Winfrey recently told TVGuide, “Stedman and I have a great relationship that allows me to be me in the fullest sense, with no expectations of wifedom and all that would mean.2004, People - Volume 61, page 56:
- Specifically, I argue that twentyfirst-century American wifedom is emblematic of the identity formations actively encouraged by postfeminist entrepreneurial regimes.2018, Suzanne Leonard, Wife, Inc.: The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century, →ISBN:
- Help me to become a pure waterer, weeder, and deadheader of our little plot, to mature from manic bride and bonnarder to the calm, the jen, of deep and ancient garden wifedom.2011, Marjorie Sandor, The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction, →ISBN:
Origin of wifedom
From wife + -dom.
Questions about wifedom
- What does wifedom mean?
- Wifedom means the condition of marriage for a woman.
- How do you use wifedom in a sentence?
- Wifedom is a job, she argued, and the only approved one available for half the population.
- What part of speech is wifedom?
- Wifedom is a noun.
Words near wifedom in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wifedom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “wifedom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wifedom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.