Why Conservative Men Are Freaking Out about the Possibility of Their Wives Voting for Harris

Nov 02, 2024

The new Harris campaign ad featuring Julia Roberts’ voice over has caused quite a stir, especially among some male Trump supporters.

These men claim the ad, paid for by Vote Common Good, encourages women to lie to their partners, which undercuts the men and “destroys marital unity.” (When you watch the ad, the blonde female voter doesn’t lie. After she casts her ballot, her husband asks, “Did you make the right choice?” And she replies, “I sure did honey.”)

The response coming from the conservative right reveals three things: men’s perceived entitlement to control both their partners’ thoughts and actions; their propensity to blame women for their own failures; and their fear of women’s collective power.

Male entitlement runs deep. Certain sects of the Christian faith have expressed their belief that only the males in a household should cast a vote. Since wives submit to their husbands, there is no need for her to exercise her rights as a U.S. citizen. Fringe, fundamentalist pastor Doug Wilson states, “The net effect of women’s suffrage was not an advance of women’s rights but rather part of a push to replace covenanted entities—like families—with raw individualism.… Suffrage was part of a long sustained war on the family.”

In this interview, so-called “pastor” Joel Webbon shares his thoughts that the 19th amendment should be repealed, first and foremost because, he’s “a Christian and that is the Christian position.” (In case you’re wondering, it’s not “the Christian position.” Webbon also thinks women who make false sexual assault claims should be executed.)

This small but vocal band of men maintain that allowing women to vote is a bad idea and undercuts marital unity. This “logic” seems to be based, at least in part, on the concept of coverture.

Based primarily in English law, the term coverture comes from a French expression, feme-coverts, or covered women. An 18th century English document explains:

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything; and is said to be . . . under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of an union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage.

Coverture meant that the husband subsumes the wife, implying domination. This is a radical departure from biblical oneness where the goal is not domination, but rather equality, partnership, stewardship of the earth, and mutual flourishing.

Coverture emphasized that married women had no rights. Hearkening back to Greco-Roman times, married women in America could not legally own property, make contracts, own a business, or open bank accounts through the 1960s, which meant they had limited agency over their lives and were often dependent on their husbands. Irrevocable sexual consent was given when a woman said, “I do”, therefore, her body as well as any children she bore were owned by her husband. Since wives were effectively incorporated into their husbands, and because it was not possible to charge someone for raping or assaulting themselves, husbands could beat or rape their wives with impunity. Intra-marital rape was not abolished across the U.S. until 1993.

The outrage that we’re seeing in response to this ad coupled with the teachings of men like Wilson and Webbon clearly communicate that a contingent of men still believe that women are either incapable or unworthy of the right to vote. This is unbiblical, illegal, immoral, and deeply offensive. It reveals how desperately men are trying to control the outcome of this election as well as the women they are in relationship with.

Men’s responses to the possibility of women not being totally honest with them seems to upset their understanding of how the world is supposed to work. Jesse Watters, Fox News host, said, “If I found out Emma [his wife] was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair.” Watters continued, “That violates the sanctity of our marriage. What else is she keeping from me? What is she lying about?” (Worth noting: Watters had an affair during his first marriage which led to his wife filing for divorce. Apparently he knows something about the topic.) During an interview with Fox host Sean Hannity, former House speaker Newt Gingrich expressed outrage at the ad believing that it fosters deceit among wives and husbands. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption…. How do you run a country… saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?” (Like Watters, Newt famously cheated on both of his first two wives.)

In a conversation between Megyn Kelly and conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, Kirk stated that, “Kamala Harris and her team believe that there will be millions of women that [sic] undermine their husbands, and do so in a way that it’s not detectable in the polling.” Kelly and Kirk referred to women voting independent of their husbands as “marital subversion.”

Women do not give up the right to think and act independently from men when they get married. Marital unity, or oneness as it’s often talked about in the New Testament, is about sharing a vision, or telos, for the future. It’s about serving each other humbly and sacrificially—rather than one individual subsuming and overshadowing the other.

A husband who believes that his wife could ruin marital unity by thinking and acting independently has confused control for unity.

Marital unity can certainly be destroyed, but believing that might happen simply because a wife votes independently of her husband signals a controlling husband. It is very possible that any woman who feels the need to lie to her husband about how she voted does so because she fears his response. In such situations, the husband has already undermined the possibility of unity by valuing his thoughts and opinions over hers and seeking to dominate her. Such behavior exposes the man’s failures and moral weaknesses, not the woman’s.

You don’t have to dig very deep to uncover the role that power plays here. It’s evident that certain white men (again, and some women) are desperate for the ring of power promised by a second Trump presidency. Like Smeagol, the harder they pursue this, the more distorted, ugly, and less human they become.

The idea of women voting independently and possibly thwarting Trump and company has absolutely undone these conservative men. Their attempt to control and disempower women has backfired. Frankly, they should be afraid. Because when we women join together and express our collective outrage and indignation at the ways we are being treated by so many conservative Republican men, we will upset the power balance. Just watch us.

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