Trad Wife Lifestyle: What It Is & Why It’s Trending Now

The term “trad wife” which happens to be a shortening term for “traditional wife”, has gained attention over the last few years amongst gen z. One of the more popular trad wife creators (@esteecwilliams on TikTok) stated in one of her many viral TikToks that “A trad wife is a woman who prefers to take a traditional or ultra-traditional role in marriage, including the belief that a woman’s place is in the home”. To put it simply, the woman within the marriage should be meal prepping and cooking, looking after the children, not worrying about having their own money, taking on the role of homemaker, while the husband is hard at work.

PHOTO: @esteecwilliams on TikTok

It’s brought a lot of different attention to the idea. Many have questioned if they agree or even if this was something they’d be interested in themselves, and many have followed trad wives such as Nara Smith, Ballerina Farm and Estee Williams on social media, either to point fun at such drastic living conditions, or to enjoy the idea.

Why is it causing a stir?
Having such extreme gender roles in place and almost reliving past times, exercising such mid-20th century power dynamics, it’s expected to spur controversy and discussion based on the current views and ways of living. While most of the world are living today fighting for equality and women’s rights, despite recent outcomes, the tradwife lifestyle associates with the complete opposite. A researcher within the Political Research Associates, Mariel Cooksey, stated in 2021 that “a movement that’s part aesthetic and part ideology, encouraging women to embrace supposedly feminine characteristics like chastity and submissiveness, and trade feminist empowerment for patriarchal vision of gender roles”.

PHOTO: @naraazizasmith on TikTok

As mentioned earlier, Nara Smith is probably the biggest trad wife influencers on social media, gaining over 11 million followers on TikTok alone. Many say that everything she practices is what the patriarchy has taught women to do, a carefully curated look on what motherhood is, cooking meals from total scratch daily that can take up to around 7 hours, while always being dressed in an elegant old style manner. There’s been many questions flying around whether or not Nara Smith is truly a trad wife, based on the fact she’s created a clear brand for herself, making money off her content, while also having a job as a model, while others disagree, such as @saintjenni on TikTok, saying even though her job as a model is making her money, the back end of modelling is created by men to sell products to women, gaining off of women’s insecurity built in my patriarchy.