Wife Swap

Wife Swap is a reality television series that originally aired on UK’s channel 4 and hasa US version broadcast on ABC. The show features two families, often very different in social class, lifestyle, or beliefs, which switch wives/mothers (and occasionally husbands) for two weeks. The featured wives are often the cornerstone of the differences in the way the two households are run, and each leaves her replacement a manual that explains her role in the family and her duties, which they must follow exactly for their first week in the new home. In the second week, the visiting wife can change some of the rules and the families must follow her decisions, often difficult for other members of the family. Once the swapping period is over, the two families meet face-to-face for the first time to talk about what they learned in the two weeks. Sometimes these meetings can get ugly, with insults, obscenities, and in some cases, violence between the families, but most often, they express respect for each other and how much they’ve learned from the swap. The families are also visited a few weeks later to see what permanent changes the visiting wife inspired. One of the most notorious families to appear on the show is the Heene family, who later involved their son in the “Colorado balloon hoax” when they reported he flew away in a hot air balloon, which turned out to be a scam for media attention. MORE