The Wives

In the novel, pregnancy is symbolic on multiple levels. It serves as a woman’s way to exert power over men and their relationships. But it also represents the highest form of love: that of a mother to a child. For Seth, pregnancy represents his virility and his desire to carry on his genes: The women in his life are only vehicles for carrying his children. This is why he leaves Regina after she declares that she will not try to get pregnant after her miscarriage. Seth's view that women are secondary to the children they can provide him manifests in his drugging Thursday after he impregnates her. He never states why he doesn’t want a child with her, but it is clear he wants to keep her as a mistress, just not as a wife. This is a blow to Thursday because she knows Seth really wants children, and it is infinitely cruel, not to mention criminal, on Seth’s part.

The concept of “trapping” someone in a marriage with a pregnancy is explored several times in the novel. First, Thursday’s mother encourages her to get pregnant so that Seth will not have another choice but to be at home more often; she does not know about Thursday’s miscarriage. Despite Thursday’s strong desire to keep Seth, she disagrees with her mother, believing the idea to be extremely manipulative. Later in the novel, she wonders whether Seth would have stayed with her if she hadn’t had a miscarriage, not knowing that it happened by Seth’s design. In a gendered reversal of this trope, Seth traps Hannah in their marriage by hiding her birth control, which leads to her pregnancy. This image of trapping women in a pregnancy represents a woman’s loss of autonomy and power within society. One of the powers women do have is their ability to become pregnant; once that is managed by men, a woman’s power over her situation disappears. Hannah as a character represents this concept. She remains ignorant and powerless throughout the novel, kept in the dark by Seth and completely helpless in her situation.