The Wife Cut

My mother had long, beautiful hair.  She would wear it almost to her waist, and just like any young child I thought I would look just as beautiful with long hair.  So I found myself sitting in almost all of grade school in a desk, having to be careful not to get my hair tangled in the rivets on the back.  I don’t think I really had short hair until high school, and that definition of short was still past my shoulders.

I could make my hair really beautiful, if I spent an hour on drying and styling it.  For over 29 years, I was enslaved to the idea that beautiful hair had to equal long hair.  This was partly because my father always made fun of ‘the wife cut’.  Over and over again he would call to witness the recent bride, six months into their marriage, cutting her hair to where it was chin length or shorter.  He would also mention the previous beauty she was before the nuptials.  He also points out that they happened to gain about 50 pounds or more not too long after the wife cut.  And this attitude that equates long hair to beautiful hair, I believe, is shared by most men.  My younger brother certainly agrees.

My father was an observant man, and he may have been right.  Women do have the safety of a consistent man in their lives and don’t have to try so hard to impress him anymore.  Is that leading him on?  Here’s what I have to offer you.  “I do.”  Now live with what I really have.  I don’t think it’s leading him on. Besides, men do the same thing in different ways, such as allowing his wife to take over the household chores a little too often (if that’s something they had shared a responsibility in before).  That in itself shows how much more busy a wife/mother is and needs that extra time that fixing her hair takes away.  Catch-22?  The important thing the couple needs to discuss is if they can both live with the changes in one another.  They must get input from each other and be ready to compromise a little.

When I discovered the ease of shorter hair, it was a revolution for me.  It was easy to fix, looked stylish, and it made me feel more ‘with it’.  I fought the idea of ‘the wife cut’ for many years, but I feel that cutting hair just for the ease of fixing it isn’t enough.  I had to pick a style I thought would compliment my looks and age.  And right now, anyone who thinks otherwise can kiss my short-haired keyster.  Yes, dad, I have the ‘wife cut’, but I love it, and I think you at least like it.

By the way, if you google ‘wife cut‘, you won’t find anything about hair.  Just keep that in mind if you are stubborn enough to not let your significant other grow and change as he or she needs to.