Due to women’s roles during this time it seems that the wife is seen as the lower of the relationship with her husband, John. John’s wife obviously has some kind of condition, and he sees that, but he makes it evident that he knows best through and through. The husband-wife relationship is deleterious and requires more effort to recovery than the wife’s illness. John is so many things; he is all the above. He is controlling, loving, overbearing, and condescending, amongst other things as well. John says things in such a subtle way that his condescending attitude is almost unnoticeable and mistaken as love. This is not to say that he doesn't love his wife, but his efforts are misleading.
First off, John is very controlling. By moving his small family to a colonial mansion just so that his wife, whom he doesn’t even believe to be sick, can get better, he proves how detached
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That’s a lot of work for someone who doesn’t think their wife is sick, or doesn’t care about her. He had to pick up their whole life. He had to move his job and their new baby, not to mention, it was probably rough on Mrs. Gilman’s condition. Her condition is surely a little hard to handle, even being a doctor, but like any doctor he was trying to persuade and reassure his wife to not think of haunted houses and scary wallpaper. “Instead, she [was] to eat well, exercise in moderation, and rest as much as she [could]…” which is what any doctor would have recommended (Haney-Peritz 115). Although it doesn’t seem like it, John does care about his wife. Many also need to realize that in this time (1890s) that “married women lived a very restricted life; wives were expected to cater to the needs of their house and husband,” but John was quite the opposite (Verhaeghe, Setting the Scene: Women of the 1890s). John tried to do what he thought was best by catering to her needs instead. He did want her to get