The concept of a wife has been embedded in cultures, religious practices, social customs and economic patterns of wildly different sorts. Is there a core concept of what it is to be a wife? Is it a good concept, or one that deserves to be thrown on the trash heap of intellectual history because it perpetrates corrosive stereotypes of women? What conceptions of being a wife do Americans have today? Join John and Ken as they discuss the topic with Marilyn Yalom, author of《妻子的历史》This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.
约翰和肯一开始就问为什么他们会问这样的问题——为什么不问“什么是配偶”?或者“什么是丈夫”?他们讨论了在过去的几十年和几个世纪里，“妻子”在文化中的意义和重要性的变化。
After a report from Philosophy Talk’s philosophical reporter, Ken and John welcome Marilyn Yalom to the show. She discusses her motivations for writing a book about the history of the concept of a wife, and the place of the concept of ‘wife’ in our culture today. After John expresses his wonder about the possibility that positive reasons for a woman to get hitched could ever outweigh the negative reasons against it, Marilyn talks about the different kinds of reasons that woman have had (and lacked) through history to choose to get married.
然后肯和约翰开始提问，玛丽莲帮助他们回答了关于男性在女性角色的文化转变中扮演的角色，对婚姻的期望和回报的跨文化差异，以及生身母性对女性生活和婚姻模式的影响。
In the last section of the show, Ken, John, and Marilyn discuss the future of marriage and its influence on women. They discuss trends in the relative education and earning power of women and men, trends in marriage and parenthood in Europe, and the health and promise of arranged marriages. They wrap up the show with a discussion about what a successful marriage looks like. John weighs in about the need for both breadwinning and nurturing parental roles and Ken points out tensions with balancing personal projects with the health of partnership in marriage. Marilyn ends with a comment about the benefits in marriage - for both men and women - of prioritizing partnership.
