However, she receives no pay and has to ask her husband for money for basically everything. It is remarkable that most women still rush to fill such a position.
The traditional housewife's main task is putting the interests of her husband and her children first. Her central mission in life is to care for her husband and children, and finds her major satisfaction in her family. In addition, for the traditional wife individual achievement is proscribed though she may help bring in the family income if it should become necessary; it should not exceed her husband's salary. She believes, moreover, that psychologically and biologically women are better suited for some tasks than others, but that the family domain does not include sharing equal authority with her mate. .
Women within the domestic sphere, become more particularistic, more emotional, and more willing to live through the lives of others at the same time as they begin to lose the independence and achievement orientated skills they might have developed through prior education and training. The role of wife and mother isolates most women from any meaningful contact with the outside world. She holds the secondary position to her husband's, who controls all the tangible rewards and acknowledgements of labor. The housewife lives in a private world dominated by family, children, and an occasional neighborhood tie. She also learns to be flexible instead of goal oriented, to be responsive rather than decisive. Moreover, the woman expects to find her major satisfactions in her marriage. Her happiness is limited to the boundaries within her marriage.
Women are aware that they are expected to be good wives and mothers and have been told that, if they fulfill these duties well they will achieve a great sense of satisfaction. They are taught early the real satisfaction is to be gained in forgetting themselves and serving others. Therefore, women who are striving to be good wives and mothers can convince themselves that they are also reaping the rewards of such applications.