The ‘Wife Bonus’ And ‘Glam SAHMs’ All Abuzz After ‘New York Times’ Article About Rich Wives And Their Year-End Bonuses


The term “wife bonus” will certainly begin dripping off the lips of plenty of folks now that the article titled “Poor Little Rich Women” written by Wednesday Martin of the New York Times? has gone completely viral. In the piece, Martin describes acting as an anthropologist among the hundreds of Upper East Side of New York stay-at-home moms that she befriended after moving there.

To her surprise, many of these rich and well-educated women spoke of getting a “wife bonus” or “year-end bonus” for being a good wife and mother all year long. The bonuses for the wives would come from their well-heeled husbands. While the men held well-paying positions, the wives acted as CEOs of their households. If they got their kids into good schools and presumably didn’t cheat on their rich husbands nor bring them any other sort of public shame, their payoffs could be a healthy wife bonus that represented tens of thousands of dollars that they could use at their discretion.

“Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice…”

The varying amounts of the bonuses for the wives further placed them in class distinctions. A $10,000 wife bonus surely set the tone and differed from a wife whose bonus hit $100,000 or so. The wives spoke to Wednesday about using their year-end bonuses for shopping trips, etc. There was also a weird separation of the sexes that Martin detailed in her article, wherein the wives took alcohol-fueled vacations and wore the same colors, while the men did their own thing at dinner parties and the like.

While some people thought the whole “wife bonus” concept was a made up joke, as reported by Business Insider?, others know that such bonuses are all too real. Every once and a good while, a monied couple’s prenup agreement will make the news, with talk of wives who will receive bonuses after one year, five years or 10 years — only if they adhere to certain requirements. Sometimes those requirements mean not gaining more than 5 pounds or other such fare.

The Guardian documents a woman who details her two years as a kept woman, and her $325 per week wife bonus, which was a lot less than the rich women on the Upper East Side.

While the general public has begun to get used to “push prizes,” which are the gifts a woman gets after having a man’s baby, the “wife bonus” is a new term resonating around the web, reports Salon?.

As reported by the Inquisitr, prenup agreements can include “no-talking” clauses as well as bonuses.

[Image via Getty]

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