Traveling With the Ball Club: A Code of Conduct for Wives Only

Abstract

When they accompany their husbands on road trips, the wives of major league baseball players must follow an unwritten code of conduct, a code socially constructed and enforced by men. This code is reflected in the way wives and ballplayers interact on airplanes and buses, and most strikingly, in the requirement that wives stay out of hotel bars where the team is staying. These interactions within a code reflecting female conformity to male dominance, and preserving male privileges, provide a lens through which we can inspect gender inequity and marital inequity, including what can fairly be called institutionalized adultery. We always talk about the unwritten rule book of being a baseball wife. We have our own rules. There's these unwritten rules that you do and you don't do. That's why everybody thinks that every wife should have to go into the minor league system, and not straight into the big leagues. —Marsha

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