​Reels, rotis and the rise of the desi tradwives

Last Aug, the Cambridge Dictionary did what Instagram had already been doing with gusto. It formalised ‘tradwife’. The word — a tidy portmanteau of ‘traditional’ and ‘wife’ — emerged from Western corners as an online subculture of young married women romanticising mid-century domesticity of cooking from scratch, keeping house, raising children, being god-fearing and presenting the husband as undisputed breadwinner. A nostalgic 1950s ideal that is currently trending. Controversially.
A quick caveat before anyone reaches for the belan. There is nothing inherently suspect about a woman choosing to be a homemaker. Nor about men who do, although that’s a rarer species. But ‘tradwives’ are a more curated offshoot that warrants a closer look.