JustPearlyThings - HEATED Debate On Marriage With Piers Morgan

00:00:00.160 Welcome back to Piers Morgan on Sensor. 0.95

00:00:02.060 Model Emily Radachowski, one of my favourite dimwits,

00:00:05.160 sparked controversy recently by claiming that getting divorced before 30 is chic.

00:00:09.760 So it seems that a lot of ladies are getting divorced before they turn 30. 1.00

00:00:16.760 And as someone who got married at 26, has been separated for a little over a year, 32,

00:00:25.260 I don't think there's anything better.

00:00:26.740 If there is nothing better than being in your 30s, still being hot,

00:00:31.740 maybe having a little bit of your own money,

00:00:33.660 figuring out what you want to do with your life,

00:00:35.660 for all of those people who are stressed or feeling stressed about that,

00:00:40.060 about being divorced, like, it's good. Congratulations.

00:00:44.380 It's like, congratulations. 1.00

00:00:47.380 God, she's ridiculous. 0.99

00:00:48.780 Well, divorce is certainly becoming more common. 0.99

00:00:51.100 Marriage itself is becoming a fierce frontier in the raging culture wars.

00:00:54.800 On one side, there are feminists rejecting a dating concept. 1.00

00:00:58.680 On the other, so-called tradwives who think it binds our societies together. 0.93

00:01:03.040 Well, tradwives spend their days dutifully cooking and cleaning 1.00

00:01:05.640 while their husbands go to work.

00:01:07.860 Estee Williams, who's a 25-year-old tradwife, 0.64

00:01:10.600 has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers

00:01:12.320 by showing off her tradwife life online.

00:01:15.440 She even gave up a job to be the perfect wife. 1.00

00:01:17.920 So, is she and others like her saving society?

00:01:21.740 Or are they selling out the sisterhood?

00:01:23.820 Well, joining me now is traditional wife and influencer, Estee Williams.

00:01:26.840 And in the studio, the socialist and author, Grace Blakely,

00:01:29.340 and YouTuber, Pearl Davis.

00:01:30.840 This might be the best line-up in the history of television

00:01:34.160 for a debate of this nature.

00:01:36.840 So, I'm very excited.

00:01:37.760 All right, Estee Williams, let's start with you as the tradwife. 1.00

00:01:40.980 Sell it to me.

00:01:41.740 Why do you think we should all go back to having tradwives in marriages? 1.00

00:01:49.780 Well, I believe that...

00:01:52.560 Well, I actually don't believe that everyone should be a traditional wife. 0.64

00:01:56.380 I think that it is a choice.

00:01:58.020 And I think it's a lovely choice if a woman wants to simply be a wife 1.00

00:02:02.280 and a mother and that's enough for her. 0.98

00:02:05.100 And it's a simple way of living with traditional gender roles. 1.00

00:02:10.040 It's balanced and we don't have to do it all as women.

00:02:14.820 I think we've proven that it's possible, but at what cost, right?

00:02:21.100 Right.

00:02:21.540 And in terms of what being a tradwife involves,

00:02:25.880 what do you think it means to be a tradwife?

00:02:30.280 Well, to adhere to traditional gender roles.

00:02:32.940 So, what I mean by that is the husband, he is the provider of the home.

00:02:37.860 He goes out, he works, and he knows how to protect his family if need be.

00:02:44.020 And the wife, she's the homemaker, she does the cooking, she does the cleaning, 1.00

00:02:48.720 and she takes care of the home and children, if there are any,

00:02:52.500 and herself, of course.

00:02:55.200 So, that's...

00:02:56.380 It's adhering to traditional gender roles. 1.00

00:02:58.400 OK.

00:02:59.040 Grace, I'm sure you thoroughly agree with this, aren't you?

00:03:00.960 Look, I mean, what Asu's just said about the fact that women should be able to choose,

00:03:05.520 obviously, I completely agree.

00:03:06.600 And, you know, men should be able to choose as well.

00:03:08.100 I think the feminist critique of traditional gender roles and gender ideology

00:03:11.800 isn't that some people like to stay at home and others don't.

00:03:14.760 It's that you shouldn't be bound to pursue a certain life

00:03:17.740 based on the sex that you were born into at birth.

00:03:20.160 The one issue I do have is, I know, actually, someone,

00:03:23.480 a friend of mine whose sister got involved in the tradwife movement in the US, basically.

00:03:27.580 She was quite young.

00:03:28.340 She got married to someone who was like, this is what we're doing.

00:03:30.780 You're going to be a tradwife. 0.99

00:03:32.100 And basically came to regret it.

00:03:33.800 She felt like she'd been controlled, like her life became very small,

00:03:36.880 and she couldn't get out.

00:03:38.120 She couldn't escape because, you know, she'd lost all her friends,

00:03:40.860 and this has become basically her entire life.

00:03:43.240 And it concerns me that sometimes we see this narrative on social media

00:03:47.060 that women have to be a certain way in order to get a husband. 1.00

00:03:51.120 So you have to be this, like, particular model of femininity for people to love you. 0.86

00:03:54.820 And I think that's really sad,

00:03:56.100 because I don't think anyone should have to shave off any parts of themselves

00:03:58.880 to be loved or to, you know, find a husband or, you know, anything like that.

00:04:02.820 All right, Pearl, what do you think?

00:04:05.740 I think it's a good that we're seeing a return to traditionalism.

00:04:10.060 Yeah, I think it's a good thing.

00:04:12.160 How...

00:04:12.640 I don't know.

00:04:13.420 How has the feminist movement of the last few decades,

00:04:17.100 how has it gone for you?

00:04:18.700 And when you look at it and see how women have progressed, 0.83

00:04:22.600 do you think it's been largely a force for good?

00:04:25.420 Or do you think, as the Tradwires do,

00:04:27.760 that perhaps we've lost that sense of gender rules,

00:04:31.300 for want of a better phrase,

00:04:32.140 which actually worked very well for many people?

00:04:33.500 Well, I mean, we've seen families disappear.

00:04:37.020 You know, I saw a study the other day that said only 25% of...

00:04:41.140 I mean, this is an American step, an American household to have families,

00:04:43.940 so I guess there's positives and there's negatives,

00:04:47.420 but it's, like, at what cost, you know?

00:04:49.320 What to you?

00:04:49.880 Like, 85, 150 years ago, the average woman had seven kids,

00:04:53.700 85% of people were married.

00:04:55.620 I mean, you know, there's also much higher infant mortality,

00:04:58.700 and women died very young, and, you know... 0.96

00:05:00.880 I mean, women were more depressed than ever before.

00:05:03.220 We're on antidepressants.

00:05:04.820 I mean, there are a lot of...

00:05:06.000 Women over the age of 45 are the least happy demographic. 0.91

00:05:08.580 There are a lot of very complex reasons for that.

00:05:11.900 Well, and the issue you have is women like Emily Ratajkowski, 1.00

00:05:15.240 you know, marriage...

00:05:15.820 Again, I've said this before, marriage isn't marriage anymore.

00:05:18.160 The average marriage is seven years.

00:05:19.520 We have things like no-fault divorce, leave if you're unhappy, so...

00:05:22.760 What does that mean, marriage isn't marriage anymore?

00:05:24.720 Because there have been so many marriages over the course of history

00:05:27.680 where people have been very unhappy,

00:05:29.200 either the man or the woman has been very unhappy,

00:05:31.060 and they've been forced, basically, to stay in a marriage.

00:05:33.220 It could have been an abusive marriage, 0.99

00:05:34.400 it could have been an mostly abusive marriage,

00:05:35.700 and that would...

00:05:36.600 You know, we have one life.

00:05:37.980 Why would you spend it with someone who doesn't make you happy?

00:05:39.620 Again, marriage was about duty.

00:05:40.740 And this is the problem we have with women. 1.00

00:05:42.880 Like, men tend to be better people than us.

00:05:45.680 Yeah, they really do.

00:05:46.700 They tend to...

00:05:47.200 I couldn't agree with you.

00:05:47.980 No, no, no.

00:05:48.180 They tend to do the right thing.

00:05:49.880 I'm done.

00:05:50.260 They are a much maligned species.

00:05:52.000 I agree.

00:05:52.300 I mean, there's a reason we have phrases like a man of his word, right?

00:05:55.400 Yeah.

00:05:55.640 It's not a woman of her word. 1.00

00:05:56.580 I just...

00:05:57.280 Men will actually stick things out.

00:05:59.380 Women, when she gets hard, we just leave. 1.00

00:06:01.280 And you're proving my point.

00:06:03.580 I think there's a...

00:06:04.560 What was your first answer?

00:06:05.940 My happiness, right?

00:06:07.240 Of course.

00:06:07.860 Everyone deserves to be happy.

00:06:09.040 Everyone deserves to be loved.

00:06:10.180 The family doesn't work when it's about you.

00:06:12.300 It's supposed to be about your kids.

00:06:13.720 And that's the problem in modern...

00:06:16.000 It's supposed to be about everyone.

00:06:16.620 No, no, no.

00:06:17.080 There's a balance and a compromise in relationships.

00:06:19.540 Do you think you're...

00:06:20.100 Am I allowed to talk now?

00:06:21.560 Okay, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

00:06:22.640 Look, I think relationships are about balance.

00:06:25.140 They're about compromise.

00:06:26.040 They're about knowing and understanding yourself.

00:06:28.000 Learning to, you know, know and understand another person.

00:06:30.180 Eventually, potentially, if you want to, bringing children into the world and teaching them how to do that as well.

00:06:34.440 Teaching them to balance a sense of their own identity with the love that they have for another person.

00:06:39.480 And, you know, for example, I know an older woman, actually, who's a friend of our family, who got divorced at about 60.

00:06:45.200 She had, you know, this lovely family.

00:06:47.100 They were together since they were 18.

00:06:48.300 And she said, I got to a point after I'd stopped being a mother and, you know, I was just kind of getting on, I realized I'd lost my sense of who I was.

00:06:55.620 And I didn't really feel like I knew who I was anymore because I'd always just been a wife and a mother.

00:06:59.900 And I wanted to go out and explore that.

00:07:01.280 And I think that's fantastic.

00:07:02.520 Good for her.

00:07:02.960 What is traditionalism?

00:07:05.100 I don't know what you think traditionalism is.

00:07:07.060 I would say a modern mentality is me before the family.

00:07:10.160 I would say traditionalism is the family before me, especially in women. 0.70

00:07:15.660 You're on to something.

00:07:16.580 And so what I actually, it's interesting you said 60-year-olds because, you know, I've interviewed 600, 700 people roughly in the past year and a half.

00:07:24.100 I've done hundreds of shows interviewing people about relationships.

00:07:26.920 And what I find is the 60-year-olds tend to, a lot of those women led their daughters astray. 0.63

00:07:33.580 You know, there's a reason we're in this mess, right?

00:07:35.740 A lot of those women had the wrong mentality when it came to marriage and had exactly the mentality that you're talking about. 1.00

00:07:41.840 Which is that one should prioritize balancing one's own sense of identity with compromise in a relationship with someone else.

00:07:46.540 No, no, it's myself before the marriage.

00:07:47.980 But that's, again, you know, I think that's an interesting point here, actually.

00:07:49.020 And it's really unfortunate because I would say the women of our generation really are suffering because of the advice of the women of the past.

00:07:55.560 That's an interesting point here, right, which is that we do live in a very individualistic society.

00:07:59.120 And we're all told, actually, I think a lot of the time in our relationships as well, you have to be a certain way if you want to receive love.

00:08:05.500 You have to abide by these norms.

00:08:07.780 You have to be a certain level of attractiveness.

00:08:09.440 You have to earn a certain amount of money.

00:08:11.120 It's all about you.

00:08:12.140 And that's not what love is.

00:08:13.200 All right, listen, it's actually been very interesting listening to this.

00:08:16.920 Let me bring it back in Esty.

00:08:18.540 Esty, in terms of trad values, like my wife puts the bins out, for example.

00:08:23.140 Right?

00:08:23.500 I've never asked her to.

00:08:25.160 She's just adopted that role in our house. 0.99

00:08:27.700 So I never put the bins out.

00:08:29.000 I don't know if I should feel ashamed of myself.

00:08:30.480 I do other stuff.

00:08:31.340 I don't put the bins out.

00:08:32.940 As a trad wife, do you put your bins out? 1.00

00:08:35.020 Is that part of the gender rule of the 50s?

00:08:38.420 Is that what used to happen?

00:08:40.060 Or is the man supposed to do that?

00:08:42.380 How do these rules work in reality?

00:08:46.300 To be honest, it has nothing.

00:08:49.060 I don't want to say nothing.

00:08:50.320 It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the 50s and the 60s, especially in our household.

00:08:57.440 I enjoy the aesthetic, and I think that's where people get a little mixed up with my channel.

00:09:03.400 But I, well, to answer your question, actually, I don't put the trash bins out.

00:09:07.360 My husband does that.

00:09:08.380 But I think we have this thing in our household where he does most of the outdoor work.

00:09:15.240 I do all the indoor work.

00:09:16.840 Of course, he works and provides, and I'm the homemaker.

00:09:20.200 That's what works for us.

00:09:21.520 But I mean, hey, I mean, it's your wife.

00:09:23.600 Right.

00:09:23.860 In relation to what Pearl said, is part of a sense of being dutiful and having no problem,

00:09:31.080 actually, with being dutiful in a marriage?

00:09:33.660 Yes, I believe that traditionalism can, it is putting your family before yourself.

00:09:42.500 And I think it is having those traditional values that were once definitely more in place

00:09:50.520 in God, family, and love.

00:09:54.300 And we live in a very selfish society now.

00:09:58.540 You know, you see self-love printed everywhere, right?

00:10:01.320 And women, speaking of divorce and marriage, women are leaving marriage far more easier 0.86

00:10:10.160 than men.

00:10:12.220 And they are doing it because they think there's something better out there for them, that the

00:10:16.940 grass is greener on the other side.

00:10:18.740 And they're finding out that is wrong.

00:10:20.820 And they're going through divorce after divorce.

00:10:23.160 And, you know, marriage is a bond.

00:10:25.920 And it's a sacred bond where two become one under God.

00:10:29.000 And that's beautiful.

00:10:30.500 And you have to protect that at all costs.

00:10:32.960 And I think part of that is putting your partner's needs before your own every single

00:10:37.700 day.

00:10:38.140 And I try and do my best.

00:10:39.920 And I think of my husband as much as I can and what will please him and make him happy.

00:10:45.240 I love the sound of this.

00:10:46.880 Sorry.

00:10:47.300 I mean, obviously, I don't.

00:10:48.920 I wouldn't dare to express my opinion.

00:10:50.580 I think that's, you know, a lovely way to think about relationships, if it's reciprocal.

00:10:54.600 You're talking about God and family and tradition.

00:10:57.700 How can I please finish my sentence?

00:11:00.640 Life isn't about keeping score.

00:11:01.220 I thought women were supposed to, you know, recognize their place and learn not to speak 1.00

00:11:04.960 over other people.

00:11:06.140 No.

00:11:06.720 So, look, I think it's reciprocated.

00:11:08.680 You talked there about religion and about Christianity and about self-love.

00:11:12.680 You know, the most important commandment, there's two most important commandments, love

00:11:17.140 your neighbor as yourself.

00:11:18.760 So, that requires a foundation of self-love and respect for oneself and knowledge of one's

00:11:23.300 own identity and what one wants to be able to receive and give the love that you're going

00:11:26.860 to have.

JustPearlyThings - October 10, 2023

HEATED Debate On Marriage With Piers Morgan

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