Judy Brady’s “Why I want a wife,” was first published forty years ago, in the inaugural issue of Ms. Magazine. In this essay, Brady aims to convince her audience to take a gander at the expectations of what a man expects from his wife, as well as providing further insight from a male standpoint.” I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean”(Brady, page 13, third paragraph). Brady uses pathos, ethos, logos, and repetition in order to further confirm her viewpoints on the topic.
In the beginning of the essay, Brady uses ethos as a way to constitute a sense of credibility by stating, “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am a Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother”. By her announcing herself as a wife is extremely critical in order for Brady to grasp the attention and adoration of her target audience, since Brady has immediate experience in what life was like for wives and mothers during the time of this passage. Since using this form of rhetoric, Brady has triumphantly won over the adoration of her target audience, essentially opening up the target audiences minds, arousing them to her argument.
Shortly after captivating readers with her usage of ethos, Brady continues to reiterate her viewpoint by using pathos in order to rile up her target audience, such as married and unmarried couples. Brady makes it a point to show the difficulties of the everyday wife that husbands have come to expect during this time frame. Brady states that “I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that”(pg.13 Brady). Brady looks grab the empathy of the female audience,