wifedom

noun

Etymology: From wife + -dom.

1. The condition of marriage for a woman.

   “I have seen a procession of monks, with a nightmare of faces, wearied, dejected, purposeless, hopeless, when not brutalized with the traces of furious rebellion against their world, and in that woful panorama of debased human nature I see the figure of what we condemn women to, when we bid them grow old in listless idleness, if they fail to secure to themselves the privileges of wifedom.”

   “"In your view of wifedom,” I began, “is the wife to acknowledge having a personality and will of her own, or do you see her as simply being responsive to her. . .her husband?”

2. A woman's devotion to meeting the needs and/or desires of another, as if they were a marriage partner.

   “We suspect that Mr. Dixon has exaggerated both the extent and intensity of the defiance of common sense as well as common decency which spiritual wifedom implies.”

   “There the motive for concealment was removed, and the apology of a spiritual wifedom ceased to exist.”