Musezine

Fascist Wife, Happy Life

When Juliette (Brigitte Bardot) wreaked emotional terror on her husband and his family in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman, she could not have predicted that one day she would be a germinal representation of a Jungian archetype as coined by This Writer: the fascist wife. With her siren song (raspy monotone), Juliette managed to order her husband about, lead him on, and essentially break him down until there wasn’t much left. And still, the couple end up together by the end of the film.

She is the militaristic dictator who demands worship. Like a fascist movement, she is aesthetically imposing, striking. He is taken by her charismatic oration (raspy monotone), Sims-like feminine swagger and sultry eyes. She promises him the world, and he will just keep coming back to her, the final taboo.

And God Created Woman. Dir. Roger Vadim

And God Created Woman. Dir. Roger Vadim

Note, if you will, that Juliette is not the fascist wife par excellence. She is a seedling; she has simply planted the idea. The fascist wife is very much floating about like a beautiful demon in the collective unconscious, whether a transhistorical phenomenon or not, equipped with a murderous gaze and an agenda. Like all archetypes, the fascist wife shifts and moulds into whichever body she possesses. Her nature is idiosyncratic. Other examples of fascist wives:

The common denominators? A rejection of meekness. Emotional terrorism. Bossiness. Brattiness. Manipulation. Projection. And underneath it all? Real, tender, true love. Care and compassion for her husband. She knows what’s best for him. She tells him what to wear (thank God) and verbally whips him when he forgets to hoover the car again. The real stinger and necessary contingent: he loves it.

Hyacinth Bucket’s husband Richard may purport to simply grin and bear it, but he really adores her. The same is true for Tony Soprano, for Tom Wambsgans, for all the men lucky enough to have a fascist wife. They must come to terms with just how right she is. With ease, she vastly improves his life.

The key to a healthy and interesting relationship is tension. The push-pull. The back-and-forth. The ripping and repairing. What the fascist wife – doting husband dynamic provides is a bit of positive tension. They should both be able to laugh at themselves and the roles they have slipped into. The fascist wife is a cutie, above all.

Of course, she is not a true fascist. Ms Bardot may or may not actually be a fascist, but that’s by the by. Perhaps authoritarian is a more suitable term, but fascist is sexier. Needless to say, the fascist wife does not do her husband quite as much harm in the real world as she does onscreen (Janice Soprano famously shoots her husband). The fascist wife is a spirit to possess, rather than a rulebook.

The right wing have tried to co-opt this archetype and hold it up as an emblem of the tyrannical feminist project, claiming that the introduction of women into the professional workforce has effectively neutered the men and forged a new status quo, a kind of perverse and manipulative matriarchy. The right-wing weirdos who lament the fascist wife are most likely jealous because they don’t have a fascist wife, in which case they would be celebrating rather than being far too active on online forums. Their fascist wives would certainly fill up their empty calendars so much so that their window of online forum time would shrink dramatically. This is, of course, what is best for them. Why not let a beautiful woman run (& ruin) your life?

The girls have tried to put a pause on adjectives like bossy, feisty, hysterical, bratty and so on. Taylor Swift has lamented a linguistic double standard that saw her rebranded from savvy businesswoman to calculated. Please.

The fascist wife is bossy, feisty, hysterical and bratty, and she knows that she is. This is where her power lies!! In the husband-wife dynamic, men cannot be bossy without being funny. Men cannot be bratty without being boring and lame. Men cannot be feisty without being aggressive. They have another kind of power. What works on a fascist wife often falls flat on a husband.

The second-wave feminists that the aforementioned girls are inspired by in their rejection of these sexist terms were, ironically, all of those things. This is what made them interesting, intelligent, beautiful and, vitally, unafraid of their own power. Don’t let us cower. Don’t trick yourself into believing your timidity is a virtue. Let your tempestuous and irrational moods rule the roost. Happy wife, happy life.

- I 7 June 2025