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This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Dating back to the first Thanksgiving, Americans have formed community around the shared enjoyment of food. While ours is not the only country that does so, Americans’ traditional enjoyment of the potluck is in many ways characteristically democratic — the medley of tastes and textures shared at a potluck speaks to a national character that is less concerned with aesthetic refinement and a hefty price tag than with full bellies and good conversation. If you are unfortunate enough to never have enjoyed a hearty potluck — unlikely if you were raised as an evangelical, particularly Baptist — it’s important that you envision the most opulent hodgepodge of sides and mains and desserts you have ever seen. The dishes are as diverse in tastiness as the loving hands that prepared them are diverse in personality and life story. Some people bring a bag of chips and salsa. Others bring their grandmother’s famous chili. Still others bring the dishes that will be wiped clean before second-rounders jostle their way to the front of the line with Costco-sized paper plates in hand. Dessert comes in two courses: first, the cookie you teeter on the edge of your mountain of dinner food, and second, the more serious dessert helping. It’s the one you grab after throwing out your paper plate and making your way back to the potluck line after allowing a polite pause following everyone’s first helping. Every Sunday that a church hosts a potluck, no electrical outlet is left unused as the church’s mothers line the halls with steaming crockpots of barbecue meatballs and seven-layer Mexican dip. The intriguing medley of smells makes its way to your nose just as the final hymn’s refrain is sung. The seminal 2000 book “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam could easily have a companion volume titled “Eating Alone.” For many Americans, even many who live with spouses and children, food is eaten over phones or across from TVs. The attention of the eater is split between screened entertainment and the food itself, rather than his own family and the food itself. Faced with a culture where enjoyment of food is no longer a social activity, individuals, particularly mothers and homemakers, are less likely to spend time cooking a meal that is consumed with such casual dismissal. From this, the culture of Uber Eats and single-serve microwave dinners has taken hold, further cementing our lonesome culture of eating. The American potluck bucks the trend of eating alone. In a world where social gatherings, when they do occur, are built around the coming Instagram post about the event, the idea of setting up white folding tables and mismatched crockpots for your friends to eat a delicious meal that has no common theme may seem out of place. And it is. We are starved for socialization, but the perfection thrust upon us by curated lives on Instagram can make it seem like only people who have their lives, homes, and cookbooks in order can socialize around food that isn’t bought at a restaurant. But the American potluck allows you to socialize with a large crowd in a low-pressure environment. You can contribute to the gathering without the entire planning and execution of the event falling on you. With the potluck, your only task is to bring one dish, a dish you would probably have cooked anyway if you had stayed home (assuming you weren’t planning to order in again). Maybe your house really is way too tiny to host, and your cooking skills really are too lacking to draw a crowd. Even so, the potluck lets you form community around food while only contributing a cheese, salami, and cracker platter from the grocery store. For those who can cook, or who are interested in learning how, the potluck fosters community around home-cooked food. It is different in this way from a group of friends who make a habit of trying the best Thai restaurants the city has to offer every Thursday night. It’s not that this might not be a great way in itself to avoid a culture of lonely eating, but it is too expensive for most and unrealistic for families with young children. The democratic genius of the American potluck lies in the fact that every income level, family size, and age can enjoy what it has to offer with equal vigor. What’s more, the potluck fosters a community of recipe-sharing, a phenomenon that is dying out with older generations of parents. There is something far more personal and friendship-inducing about asking Mrs. Johnson for the recipe for her au gratin potatoes than asking her for the name of the restaurant you saw her at on Instagram. Recipe-sharing expands our abilities as cooks while encouraging a community that offers distinct food options that we have created ourselves in our own home kitchens. Churches are perhaps the most obvious place where potlucks can and should happen. But any group can host a potluck. The host need only provide some plastic cutlery and paper plates, instructing each guest to bring enough to feed his or her family and a few more. If you have never enjoyed a potluck, let me be the first to assure you that it is the most low-risk yet high-reward way to begin investing in real relationships that build lasting communities in a uniquely American way. *** Sarah Wilder is a wife and mom living on a small homestead in Michigan. She is a cultural commentator and a writer, and her work is regularly published in outlets such as Chronicles Magazine, 1819 News, and American Mind. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The year was 1996. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I stepped into my first day as a federal agent, clad in a crisp cream pantsuit and a sensible ponytail and wearing a silver cross around my neck. My training officer sat in his office, finishing a personal call. “Oh geez,” he groaned. Click. “Happy wife, happy life, I guess!” Followed by a sinister laugh and a few God-blaming expletives. This was my introduction to a career filled with men who spoke about their wives with sarcasm, cynicism, or resigned humor. You’d think it would have turned me off to marriage. For a while, it did—until I realized the real danger wasn’t in their words but in what I was absorbing. I started keeping an internal checklist: Never be a nag. Never have a honey-do list. Never talk too much. Always stay attractive so he won’t stray. I didn’t realize it then, but I was crafting my own version of the “perfect” wife—the one who would never be the subject of a “happy wife, happy life” complaint. This phrase isn’t biblical, and if we’re not careful, accepting it as a principled excuse for passivity can disrupt God’s design for marriage. Excuse for Passivity On the surface, this common saying sounds harmless—perhaps endearing. But dig a little deeper, and the message is clear: A husband’s job is to keep his wife happy to avoid trouble. Is this what Adam thought when he stood by and let Eve take the fall? If we’re not careful, accepting this phrase as a principled excuse for passivity can disrupt God’s design for marriage. Genesis 1 tells us God created man and woman to steward creation together. But in Genesis 3, Adam chose passivity: “She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. . . . The man said [to God], ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate’” (vv. 6, 12). Adam could’ve led. He could’ve slain the Serpent. He could’ve stood firm. Instead, he stayed silent and later blamed Eve (and God). Yes, the Bible warns of quarrelsome wives (Prov. 21:9), but it also calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church—sacrificially, not passively (Eph. 5:25). God’s vision for marriage is mutual love and mutual respect, with husbands called to lead through humble, servant-hearted sacrifice, not appeasement. Mark of Reluctant Compliance Some might argue “happy wife, happy life” is just about loving gestures—giving her the bigger closet, letting her pick the movie. But the phrase rarely conveys that kind of joyful sacrifice. More often, it suggests reluctant compliance: Just say yes and avoid conflict. This creates a distorted dynamic. The wife becomes more dominant—not necessarily through strength or virtue but often through emotional or sexual control, anger, or manipulation. The husband, rather than stepping up, disengages. She gets her way but loses his heart. He keeps the peace but forfeits respect and godly leadership. Over time, this dynamic can breed resentment and leave them both feeling unsatisfied and longing for a genuine partnership. A strong marriage isn’t about power struggles. It’s about serving and submitting to each other in love (Eph. 5:21–33). Submission isn’t blind obedience, and love isn’t weak compliance. It requires courage, humility, and a desire to glorify God, not self. Marriage isn’t about keeping peace at any cost. It’s about reflecting Christ’s love for the church—a love that sacrifices and sanctifies. That kind of happiness far outweighs the temporary calm of appeasement. God’s design for marriage is good; it’s good for us, and it pleases him. Sometimes that means a wife doesn’t get what she wants. Sometimes that means a husband needs to lead and stand firm. That’s not a loss. It’s the beauty of God’s design at work. Different Kind of Marriage As I walked with God through singleness in my 30s, I had to unlearn the jaded lessons I’d picked up from the “happy wife, happy life” mentality in my early career. Instead of merely enduring while wanting to escape singleness, I learned to experience it as a full and meaningful season of life. I was a whole person, not waiting to become complete. Yet I also hoped for marriage, aspiring to be the kind of woman Scripture calls an “excellent wife,” one who captures her husband’s heart because she “does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life” (Prov. 31:10–12). Those years shaped me deeply, forming my faith as I walked with the Lord in his Word and in prayer, and as I gleaned from the wisdom of godly couples. God’s design for marriage is good; it’s good for us, and it pleases him. When I married at 41, my husband and I committed to a different kind of marriage, one built on mutual accountability. Early on, a wise couple told us, “Pray together every day. It’s the key to a strong marriage.” We took that to heart, and in over 15 years, that habit has made us more humble, open, and dependent on God. It’s hard to cling to control when you’re coming together before the throne of grace. Better Kind of Adage Since being married, I’ve heard some good-intentioned souls try to level the husband-wife playing field with a phrase like “happy spouse, happy house,” but it hasn’t caught on. Even with this phrase, the focus is on the wife and husband. There’s a better way. In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis writes about “a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them.” Marriage heals this battle of the sexes, he continues, because the two of them express the fullness of humanity as they seek God together: “In the image of God created He them.” When, as one, a husband and wife both seek God first and live out the marriage drama in love and humility, their marriage becomes joyful—not because it’s easy but because it reflects God’s glory. For this reason, I’ll stick to the adage posted on our front door. “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:15).

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