In Margaret Atwood's book, an assignment lasts about two years. We can assume that June spent roughly two years at her last family and about a year or less at the Red Center training to be a
Handmaids have three chances to get pregnant in three different households during two year assignments. If, after the third time, they are not able to produce a living, healthy baby, they will be sent off to the Colonies to face certain death.
Handmaids who successfully bear children continue to live at their commander's house until their children are weaned, at which point they are sent to a new assignment to a new commander. Those who produce children will never be declared "Unwomen" or sent to the Colonies, even if they never have another baby.
Wives are usually married to high ranking men in Gilead, such as Commanders, Angels and Eyes. Being a Wife is regarded as a high honor in Gilead. Only women perceived as being 'pure' and moral are given the 'privilege' of marrying. (Handmaids, for example, could never be Wives, due to their controversial nature).
According to the novel, Handmaids who are no longer fertile, or fail to become pregnant after three different Commanders, are sent to the Colonies - essentially a nuclear waste dumping ground. They are forced to clean this waste until they die. Pretty grim outlook there, but that's dystopia for you!
In the story, an environmental disaster has led to most women becoming infertile, and the small number who are still able to become pregnant are forced to become handmaids, women who are owned by the ruling elite and systematically raped in order to provide them with children.
In the television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, Offred not only gets pregnant. She gives birth to a healthy daughter who is later smuggled into Canada by her friend, Ofglen. This is one dramatic way in which the show differs from the novel.
A successful pregnancy for a Handmaid means a release, not just for her but for the household she serves. In a moment of businesslike empathy, the narrator understands that Serena Joy would be relieved if she got pregnant and they could stop having Ceremonies.
Women's Prayvaganzas are weddings for the Wives' daughters, mass ceremonies in which girls as young as fourteen get married. In a few years, the brides will be girls who do not remember life before Gilead.
Wives sit at the head of the bed with the Handmaid between their legs, holding their hands as a means of spiritual connection between the Commander, their 'vessel', and herself.
6 Women are Forbidden to Read or Write
Like the coercion of religious beliefs in Gilead, women are at the forefront of regulations of their freedom. Asides from the Handmaid's sexual servitude and orchestration of their bodies, every woman in Gilead (asides Aunts) is subject to the removal of words and pens.
Captured due to their fertility, Handmaids are assigned to Commanders, where they take on a symbol of their name; for example, June belonged to Fred Waterford, so she became Offred. Here, they serve as concubines to produce the next generation of Gileadeans.
She rolls her eyes and scoffs at Lydia's teachings, causing disruption and inconvenience for the other women present. As punishment, the Aunts take Janine's eye, a reference to the Bible passage ““if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out” that almost instantly subdues her spitfire personality.
At the start of The Handmaid's Tale June had been in Gilead for three years, and within a few months of being at her new posting as "Offred," she became pregnant with Nick's baby. By the time Nichole was born, towards the end of The Handmaid's Tale season 2, June had been in Gilead for four years.
The Handmaids wear red dresses and red capes, which they must wear in public. Wearing red indicates the Handmaids' fertility, symbolising their primary role which is to produce a child. Only those women who are fertile wear red.
Show runner Bruce Miller also spoke to Business Insider about the reveal of the mouth rings. He said: “It was my idea to put it in the show. It was an extrapolation of the enforced silence, which is the idea that handmaids are told to be quiet, and they're forced to be quiet.”
In the show, there's a black Commander who got his wife pregnant. And the novel mentions that very few lucky wives of commanders get pregnant. (Albeit it is mentioned that some wives, like the handmaids, resort to other men). So, it seems to be that married couples are allowed sex.
In Gilead, wives are selected from among the daughters of respectable citizens once the girls have reached childbearing age. Their mothers arrange their marriages to Angels who have recently returned from the front line.
The former is easy; they simply remove them in private in order to eat. As for Ofgeorge, I notice the rings were somewhat large, which would give her the ability to part her lips slightly to take in a liquid diet.
Rather than being married to Commanders, Econowives are fertile women who are married off to Gilead's more ordinary men. As well as being expected to have children, Econowives are expected to take care of their households, and they aren't assigned Marthas to help them.
Gilead dictates that all births should take place at home by natural methods, in the presence of women only. As Offred notes with some scepticism on page 124, Gilead's emphasis on natural childbirth embraces also the idea that the pains of childbirth are women's just punishment for Eve's Original Sin.
Unbaby, or shredder, is the term used in the Republic of Gilead to describe infants that are suffering from birth defects or physical deformities. These die shortly after birth due to their defects. They are usually taken away to be disposed of.
The People Of Hope, for those who are interested, was started in 1975 by a New York stockbroker and ordained Catholic priest named Robert Gallic. They called the women “The Handmaidens of God” – but, unlike the Handmaids in Atwood's dystopia, the real Handmaidens were similar to the Wives of Gilead.
She is fiercely jealous of June, for whom Fred has repressed romantic feelings; she often punishes June unjustly simply to vent her jealous rage. She also feels inadequate because she cannot get pregnant, again taking it out on June.
The Waterfords were previously believed to both be infertile. Fred had failed to get both June and a previous handmaid pregnant, despite many attempts even outside Gilead's "ceremony". Serena was shot in her lower abdomen by a protester in the days before Gilead, and her injuries damaged her reproductive organs.