The Wife as the Professional

When I was first asked to write about the wife as the professional, I was pleased and accepted willingly. This is an area of interest to me both personally and professionally, because I am both a wife and a professional, as are many of my patients. However, in trying to gather my thoughts and put them down on paper, I found that I was experiencing unusual difficulty. Nothing was forthcoming except dull fragments of ideas. Somehow I seemed blocked in writing on this subject. It was not until I talked this over with my husband, Dr. Martin Symonds, that I discovered what the problem was. With a male point of view, he saw it immediately. Why are we thinking about the wife as a professional? Do we ever say “the husband as a professional?” This would be preposterous. If we were going to discuss men, we would, perhaps, discuss the professional as a husband. Yet, the title I tried to work on did not seem odd even to me—though I am a professional woman interested in women's issues. Even I was not attuned to the meaning of this title—wife first, professional second. Are we to discuss the wife as a professional, or the professional as a wife? This is the same conflict which professional women have always faced.

The culture relegates women to the role of man's mate and helper, the wife. The dictionary defines “wife” in several ways: (1) a woman united to a man in lawful wedlock; (2) a married woman; (3) a mistress of a house, a housewife; (4) the female of a pair of mated animals. Being female automatically prepares women for their later role in life—that of being mated to a man. This has always been considered sufficient unto itself. On the other hand, the dictionary definition of professional is: (1) of or pertaining to a profession, especially a learned or skilled profession; (2) an occupation that properly involves a liberal, scientific, or artistic education, especially law, medicine, or theology; (3) Syn.—trained, skilled, expert.

After looking these words up in the diction