After reading both "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, many connections can be made between the two texts in regards to the role of women. The satirical piece "I Want a Wife" mocks the stereotypical role of women in the household and the
dynamic between a wife and her husband. The piece portrays the wife as an
object and property of the husband, granted with only a small portion of rights, along with an outrageous list of characteristics and duties the "perfect" wife should naturally hold and perform for her husband. In Huck Finn, a similar relationship can be reflected by Mrs. And Mr. Phelps. In the Phelps household, Sally Phelps is left with dealing with jobs regarding taking care of the children and doing jobs around the house, and her husband is left with much of the other business, including riding into town to gather news, and serving as the head of the household, being the only one with a job. The Phelps family fits the cookie cutter description of families in society and this is the stereotype that Judy Brady was mocking throughout her piece and calling for change among. Furthermore, the novel "Adventures of Huck Finn" goes to the extent of demonstrating the assumed limited capabilities of women in society. When Huck pretends to be a girl in the middle of the novel, he is told when trying to kill a rat, to "miss [the] rat about six or seven foot" (Twain 72) in order to play a more convincing roll as a
girl. This unfairly depicts that women are unathletic and not capable of having the same skills as men. Both of these pieces address the separation between the roles of men and women. "I Want a Wife" works to showcase how women should not be limited by the stereotype presented by society of the role of women in a relationship, but how women should instead feel free to pursue any type of lifestyle they wish, challenging the common assumptions and expectations of women that are present within "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".
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