Washington Irving's story "The Wife"says a lot about various social and economic values in the United States during that time period. The story has a great message about love and commitment, but on the other side of the spectrum its comes off as overwhelming materialistic. I don't think this story speaks for the majority of economic values in the United States during this time period. Most people didn't live in a nice house with beautiful furniture and expensive musical instruments, and a wife that didn't have to work to help and provide for the household. The husbands holds to many worldly values on a pedestal. He comes off as very feminine in the amount of whining that he does. It's almost a gender role reversal, the wife takes the news in stride and makes the best out of what she has and stays by her husband through the good and the bad, I believe both of these traits were an intergral part of the family structure during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because life was more about survival. This story shows me that American values regarding women economics and marriage have changed greatly from previous centuries to what we see today.
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