I escaped a forced marriage and then fell into the world of Britain’s tradwives

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There she is. A “conventionally beautiful” woman wearing an expensive floral dress that is worth three months’ rent, baking sourdough in an immaculate kitchen you can only dream…

It’s a cold Tuesday afternoon. You’ve got five emails to write and another 162 sitting in your inbox demanding attention. But instead you’re doomscrolling on Instagram.

There she is. A “conventionally beautiful” woman wearing an expensive floral dress that is worth three months’ rent, baking sourdough in an immaculate kitchen you can only dream of owning. Her four beautifully behaved children, all with perfect white teeth, look on adoringly while her handsome husband milks a cow in the background.

You’re now drawn into this perfectly curated, nostalgic world. But these aren’t just any influencers. They’re tradwife influencers, women who’ve helped turn traditional domesticity into something aspirational. They embrace traditional gender roles, with husbands as breadwinners and wives responsible for the home and children. For some, this also means submitting to their husbands, meaning that they do not have any autonomy over household decisions. It’s his way or the highway.

As someone who was forced into marriage at 19 and expected to conform to traditional gender roles, I struggled to understand the attraction. Why were women drawn to a life I’d fought to escape? That curiosity became the starting point for my BBC documentary Young, British and Tradwife.

During our research, I encountered the familiar online fantasy: beautiful homes, expensive dresses and domestic bliss. But the biggest surprise came during filming, when I discovered that the British tradwives I met were a world away from those carefully curated images.

Take Molly, a deeply religious mother of seven whose life revolves around her family, faith and marriage. Having spent time living according to her rules, I can tell you there’s nothing particularly glamorous about the sheer amount of work involved. Molly homeschools her children, cooks every day, sews their clothes and gets through four loads of washing daily. She’s an incredibly devoted mother, constantly juggling about 10 things at once.

As the eldest of…

M…

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