‘A husband expects a yes’: how wife schools are shaping submissive Christian women

A cottage industry of women are selling courses aligned with a conservative movement that claims feminism is the source of women's discontent

A thirtysomething woman with the easy smile of your favorite neighbor sits in her earth-tone living room, natural light washing over a gray couch so long it could easily fit four children. The woman speaks of a friend, a married mother, who was frustrated that she had to constantly remind her germophile husband to wash his hands. Hearing this, the woman cautioned her friend: I think it would be better for your entire family to get the black plague and die ... than for you to continue treating your husband like a toddler by reminding him to wash his hands."

Welcome to Wife School, a video masterclass led by Tilly Dillehay, a 38-year-old Baptist writer, podcaster and pastor's wife who teaches women how to become the kind of woman who inspires a godly leader". That means molding them into the wives she says that husbands want: smiling, attentive and submissive, women who know not to nag - even if it means risking the bubonic plague.