English being what it is*, I am going to be generous and assume you mean you value your wife because she is a partner, not a possession.
That, I feel, is the true issue here. We see it in terms like “trophy wives” and such, how they have no concept of partnership, every relationship is a question of who is in charge, and who is forced to submit. They love those nature documentaries about the old bull fighting off challengers and imagine themselves like that.
*a language so loaded with ambiguity, contradictions and exceptions that it can be both very expressive and maddeningly hard to say what you mean, that is.
