Wife Swap Series Not as Offensive as Its Name Suggests

When I first heard about the series Wife Swap, I was of the attitude that it was just another show in series of attempts to lower the bar on what is allowed on public television and attack the ideas of traditional marriage. When a good Christian friend recommended this show, I was pleasantly surprised!

Indeed, there is actually a swapping of families that occurs but there are no sexual exchanges between the spouses who have swapped. The wife is the one who moves in with the swapping family for the two week time frame. 

Each wife writes a book of rules for the incoming wife that outlines how her family functions. 

These rules are followed for the first week of the swap and then the rules are changed. The second week of the swap is lived out by the family adhering to the new set of rules that the swapped wife makes for her temporary family.

Usually the families involved in the swap have extreme views on living. Some examples are families with many rules and those with no rules, families where children are home schooled and the opposite being where a nanny is the primary caregiver. Other examples are families with different soci-economic and ethnic backgrounds. 

The wives often travel to a completely different state and are usually with a family in a completely different setting than their actual family.

This show allows viewers to explore their views and contemplate which family they would tend to relate to the best. In the beginning, there is usually a great deal of conflict in the temporary family but by the time the real families are reunited, both families (particularly the adults) have had someone to show them a new perspective on marriage and child rearing and seem eager to improve their home life with this newly found insight. 

It is like having a non-professional counselor living in with the family and making suggestions for improved family relationships

For those who are not fans of Monday night football, I recommend this thought provoking series on ABC.