Tips to look after your husband....

[RiseToday]

This just popped up on FB

My stance is - fuck that for a game of soldiers. Reasonable?!

Touch up your make up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking.

He'd be most alarmed.

Debunked by Snopes a long time ago.

I'd like to see some actual evidence of 1950s values, rather than something written just to rile up modern women and tell us how good we have it.

For the most part I think all these 50s tips are a load of bollocks, but I am coming out of a bit of a difficult time with my DH and I talked to my Sister one day and she actually advised me to find my inner home maker. I work part time and have two boys aged 7 and 10 who play loads of football so obviously very different from a 50s wife. That said, I have really been trying to make home a nicer place for the whole family, decluttering, bits of painting, buying fresh flowers, trying to make it so the kids are calm when my DH comes home (this one doesn't work often and they certainly are not clean). Have also been trying to dress a bit better and lose a bit of weight,but that is mainly for my own self-confidence, DH takes the piss out of me dieting but I feel better when I can fit into the clothes I like. Would certainly never take his shoes off though and being in an even mood is the best I can do rather than trying to be a little gay lol.

I have my mum's book "The years of Grace" at home (from the 1950s)
It explains a lot....

www.snopes.com/history/document/goodwife.asp

actually you need to read the entire article from snopes

Debunked by Snopes a long time ago

Not quite, Iskra... Yes, they can't find the source but on the snopes website, they post this (real) list appearing at the time, which demonstrates that those valued WERE around.

DO: Accept him at face value.
DON’T: Try to change him.

DO: Admire the manly things about him.
DON’T: Show indifference, contempt, or ridicule towards his masculine abilities, achievements or ideas.

DO: Recognize his superior strength and ability.
DON’T: Try to excel him in anything which requires masculine ability.

DO: Be a Domestic Goddess.
DON’T: Let the outside world crowd you for time to do your homemaking tasks well.

DO: Work for inner happiness and seek to understand its rules.
DON’T: Have a lot of preconceived ideas of what you want out of life.

DO: Revere your husband and honor his right to rule you and your children.
DON’T: Stand in the way of his decisions, or his law.
We don’t want to believe any woman, even half a century ago, was willing to submit herself to a life of servitude in order to be considered successful at her “most important role in life,” that of the wife. And we certainly don’t want to believe our schools were used to inculcate young women with these skewed notions of the proper role for women. Yet we’d be wrong on both counts: Women did, and young gals were.

www.pcnohow.us/family/1955.html

Judging by the reference to a dishwasher this is likely to be American and the housewives this would be written for would have been comfortable and totally supported by their husbands sole income. In context these women would have had a lot of leisure time as they had a more prosperous background than England was enjoying in the 50's. American family life was considered sacred and the woman was the centre of family life. Just so you can view the article in context of it's time frame and geography. It's not likely to be a spoof actually, there's lots of these articles around.

there are a lot of old dears advocating that drivel

I take issue with that as well.

I also find the whole 'fuck that shit' attitude grating along with what amounts to sneering at how stupid and subservient women used to be, compared how marvellously enlightened and fabulous we are now.

Times were very different. Those things of course aren't acceptable to most people now, but it was my mother's life and her mother's life, and they were very happy.

My mother doesn't live like that anymore, but she would be hurt to hear me or my friends sneer at the life that made her very happy.

Look let's be honest, I would love to come from work to all of that.

I guarantee your i would be a much better wife if that was how I greeted every night rather than carnage i come home to every evening.

Sometimes I "work" late (sit in Costa with a trashy ma g) cos I can't face bedtime

i always find these soooo ridiculous even for the 50's
considering while all the manly men were off fighting in the previous decade it was the women of the british isles,north america and australia that kept the countries functioning and producing food,munitions and everything else.while raising children.
so heres to our moms/mums/grands and great grands

I don't think this is fake. I'm sure I remember reading an almost identical thing in an old housekeeping book at the pil's house years ago. They had all kinds of old health/housekeeping/parenting books.

Offer to take his shoes off....that is scary. It is quite interesting that such attitudes were more common in the western world. Friends of mine from Eastern Europe have said their mums were more equal to men than what they have seen here

This is a great social history book about women's lives (of all sorts) in the 1950s. V much recommend if you're looking for a good read.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00NJA4M20/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505584438&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=perfect+wives+in+ideal+homes&tag=mumsnetforum-21

Even if it was true, it (as usual) alludes to the middle and upper middle classes, and it assumes (as usual) that all men worked in an office.

My grandfather worked down the pit, and if my grandmother had behaved liked that "article" he would have thought she'd lost the plot. When he got home from work, he had stuff to do - gardening, home maintenance, window cleaning, supervising homework. My grandmother took in washing and cleaned for other people. There was obviously more balance among the working classes.

wombling 3/thank you/on the other side of it
my mom worked in a steel manufactoring plant
made those toys the rest of us wantedlike miniature ironing boards and stoves.so glad she didn't bring her work home

mamabear
north america(not just the us)didnt have to literally rebuild parts of their country after ww2/the industrial parts were still standing.
and n.a companys wanted to push the easier on housewives thing.
most of my friends growing up in the 60's had moms who worked,only the farm familys had sahm and they worked hard too.it was an economically
mixed area, in town was steel mills and clothing factorys.plus some very old universities.on the edge of town were dairy,pig and cattle farms along with produce farms.
one way or another there was work available and thats where the middle class came from.thats what the so called american dream thing was all about.and it truley depended on where you lived.
there are places out west that you still can't watch tv or own a cell phone ,no electric etc,they still sell treadle sewing machines out there,so imagine what it was like in 1955.

Maybe that was the life of middle class women, but it certainly wasn't the life of working class women in the 60s/70s. They were out working. I know, because I was there. And yes, women were only just starting to get out there and make their own way in a world where sexism was rife, but in mining communities it was quite common for the men to tip up their wages at the end of the week, and their wives to give them some pocket money and control the rest. Apron strings were pretty bloody powerful, from my recollection.

Sorry, just realised others are posting similar memories.

Yes my grandparents were working class and my engineer grandfather came home and had to help get 9 kids fed, bathed and into bed. Apparently it was chaos (but loving). There's no way advice like that applied to your average working class family or wife.

Maybe that was the life of middle class women, but it certainly wasn't the life of working class women in the 60s/70s. They were out working.

Not my experience at all.

I grew up in the 60s in a very poor mining community.

Not one of the women in my neighbourhood or mother of my school classmates worked full time.
Perhaps an evening cleaning job but no woman had a career.

It was a hideous time for women.

On the other hand, the very fact that this had to be printed as advice suggests it wasn't automatic common practice everywhere, (even if it was acceptable to publish and suggest).

We don't tend to print stuff like "remember to breathe air and eat food every evening".

there are a lot of old dears advocating that drivel

The irony of talking about sexism and patriarchy with casual ageism.

It's true that when people look back in time for definitions of womanhood they look at middle-class or middle-class aspiring women where the woman stayed at home.

That wasn't the reality for working class women. Both my nans worked full-time outside the home.

This narrow focus just gives a skewed version of history and allows people to believe that women had an easy (albeit boring) existence.

Well said, TheLuminaries.
My parents had that sort of marriage in the 50s, up to a point. Very different to mine, but it worked for them.
What did he do? Hand over his wage and get pocket money in return, all money was joint, she didn't have to worry about food, a roof over her head, enough cash to keep a family or juggling a job with running a household. She never painted, decorated, used a screwdriver or did anything but a little light weeding in the garden. They made all decisions together.