Virtual Wives and (In)Voluntary Subordination

 

by Stephanie Chang

Marianne Weber argues that married women must look toward voluntary subordination without betraying their own autonomy in Authority and Autonomy in Marriage. Weber writes that “The richer and more independent the content of [a woman’s] personality comes to be, the more difficult her fundamental subordination must of course become” (2003:92). Here, Weber draws a connection between a woman’s realized autonomy—her personality and averse position to committing blasphemy—as inherently linked to resistance within a marriage requiring some level of autonomy be relinquished for voluntary subordination.

This image shows Akihiko Kondo, a middle-aged school administrator, beside his legally married wife: a hologram of the Japanese virtual reality character, Hatsune Miku. He claims that he demonstrates deep commitment and loyalty to his wife, who he interacts with through a $2800 device that allows for real-time movements. Kondo rejects all attraction to real women, with his wife epitomizing “a child, naïve to the world… enclosed in the circle of the household, fixed in her interests on the purely personal and trifling” (2003:93). While arrangements like Kondo’s evidently remain in the minority, Weber might say that the caricature of an ideal wife is appealing for her inability to oppose her husband’s authority, thereby treating subordination as an unquestionable default.

Works Cited

Weber, Marianne. 2003. “Authority and Autonomy in Marriage.” Sociological Theory 21(2): 85-102.

“I married my 16-year-old hologram because she can’t cheat or age.” November 13, 2018. From New York Post. Retrieved April 21, 2022 (https://nypost.com/2018/11/13/i-married-my-16-year-old-hologram-because-she-cant-cheat-or-age/).