Success Quote by Dick Van Dyke

It lands like a punchline, then lingers like a diagnosis. Dick Van Dyke frames sexism as a compliment and a critique at the same time: the “advise them” line nods to the familiar trope of the wife as the quiet architect behind a man’s public competence, but it also smuggles in an indictment of the system that requires women to do that work unpaid, uncredited, and perpetually “behind.”

The intent reads as wry, even protective: he’s not claiming men are inherently superior; he’s suggesting many men are propped up. That reversal is what makes it work. By treating “having a wife” as an advantage on par with talent or opportunity, he exposes a soft power arrangement that’s usually invisible. The subtext is less “women can’t win” than “the game is rigged by domestic labor.” Men, in this framing, outsource logistics, emotional management, social calibration - the unsexy infrastructure of a successful life - to a partner who is rarely rewarded in the same currency.

Context matters because Van Dyke is a midcentury sitcom icon, a face from an era that mass-produced the competent husband and the hyper-capable wife. Heard then, it could pass as genial appreciation; heard now, it’s a neat capsule of why “supportive spouse” is treated like a charming bonus for men and a basic expectation for women. The line also quietly points to the modern paradox: as women enter the workforce at scale, they’re still asked to be everyone’s wife - just without one of their own.