"A Good Wife's Guide," article from 1955 - A MUST READ!!!!

[borlis]

Welcome to Stepford!:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[LadyoftheRabbits]

1. Oh... my god

:puke: :puke:

0.0

[matcom]

2. the EXACT rules Mrs Matcom lives by!

what a coincidence! :think:

P.S. please don't tell her i said that

:hide:

[borlis]

4. lol

I read this and somehow think my mom was suppose to be like that, but she wasn't really. And she got married in 1954.

[NewWaveChick1981]

8. My mom would have flipped them off...

:rofl: My mother was too independent for crap like that, and she brought me up that way too... :P

[City Lights]

18. I can only imagine the comments Mom would make reading this!

:rofl:

RIP, Mom. After 43 years of marriage to an Archie Bunker kinda guy, you deserve some rest and some peace...

[yvr girl]

6. You know I have her email address right?

I think I might need to blackmail you.

[matcom]

10. doesn't matter

she left for the grocery store to do the DAMNED SHOPPING like she is SUPPOSED to do cause i'm SICK DAMMIT!

:hide:

[yvr girl]

12. you silly man

The whole point of blackmail is the threat. It's the fear that I might tell that will keep you paying.

[matcom]

13. ppfftttt

i'll just forbid her to read email.

that simple

[City Lights]

3. Updated title for the times: "GOP's guide to being a good wife."

:wtf:

[NewWaveChick1981]

5. Translation: Slave.

:eyes: Absolutely no freaking way. I'd have been working with Betty Friedan back then, so Housekeeping Monthly would have been used as birdcage liner. :rofl:

[LaurenG]

7. I have an old "Army Wives" book

That spells it out in a very similar way. It even tells you at what time to dust and how to *kiss* the arses of higher ranking wives!!!!:wtf: :rofl:

[OzarkDem]

42. Officers wives had it rough

They had to do all this and wear the rank of their hubby and entertain and socialize accordingly.

I would not have been able to handle that. Mr. OzarkDem would have been busted back to buck private within a month.

[idgiehkt]

9. my mother has this clipping. seriously.

I have read this so many times over the years.

And in southern baptist fundie land "a good wife always knows her place" is not anachronistic

[MrSlayer]

11. "Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him."

Cool, promoting threesomes!

[ForrestGump]

14. Quite right, too

What?




:hide:

[Not_Giving_Up]

15. When I was a senior in high school, I attended a mother-daughter banquet

at my mom's fundie church. The speaker for evening spent two hours talking about how women are supposed to act...most of those things were on the list. My favorite was "How do you know if an outfit is too provocative to wear in public? If it turns your husband on, you shouldn't wear it out."

Scary, scary people.

[WCGreen]

16. Actually, there is a rumor running around for years....

That this "50's" way of looking at domestic life was in order to calm the PTS that millions of vets from WWII were inflicted with....

[LeftyMom]

28. I'd believe it

Sounds a lot like life with my late step-father (who, amongst other things, was an untreated manic depressive with PTSD and an addiction to pain meds) in terms of being very quiet and unobtrusive, making sure there was nothing to upset him when he got home and giving him time to relax and let go of the day's stress before interacting with him at all. We'd have to spend the first hour or so after he got home walking on eggshells, but if he didn't blow up in that hour he'd usually be pleasant for the rest of the evening. Weekends were worse, because they'd throw off his routine and he wouldn't cope with minor stresses as well.

[WCGreen]

29. That is why, I believe, the whole Red Menace thing

got out of control in the 50's...

The people in charge were all suffering from or were taking advice from people who had PTSD.....

[WritingIsMyReligion]

17. *wipes mouth* "Sorry, ma! I'll clean the vomit up ASAP."

Oh, no...Here it comes again.

:puke::puke:

Holy fuck.

:mad:

[dorktv]

19. A Good Wife Knows Her Place is...

in the House, the Senate and the White House.

A good husband knows he should stay home and not bother her with petty domestic concerns. :rofl:

[City Lights]

20. I'll drink to that, dorktv!

:beer:

[dorktv]

22. Yeppers. Women should run everything and men should just oh...

Do things that are well, not as earthshaking.

They had their chance, now it is our turn. :)

[ForrestGump]

37. Exactly so

We should stay home and pamper ourselves, preening like the sex objects that we are, supported by our women (no housework, of course...that's the butler's work).

It works for me...sounds like paradise. :D

[dorktv]

57. hahaha, I wanted to get me one of those house husbands but I have

to make more first.

[terrya]

21. My God, not even June Cleaver was like this.

Unbelievable.

[sarge43]

23. Jeez. It reads more like instructions for dealing

with someone just a twitch and giggle from a psychotic episode. I didn't think men were that fragile.:shrug:

[xchrom]

24. ''after all, catering for his comfort will provide you

with immense personal satisfaction.''

this is where conservative men and women want to take us all back to.

the hatred for women contained in that piece is stunning.

[Robb]

25. "Housekeeping Monthly"

Well, if that's all the more often she cleans up, no wonder she's got time for all this crap. :D

[MrScorpio]

26. Pre-Women's LIb/Civil Rights/Sexual Revolution was a very weird time

And I guess that you could call it a "Man's World"

But I'd rather come home to this:

[Darth_Kitten]

27. What timing!!!! My cousin was passing around this email today........

at my niece's wedding....we all got quite a laugh out of it. :)

[LibertyLover]

30. This reminds me of articles I read published during World War II

I was doing research for a paper on women and the homefront during World War II for a course on women and the military when I was working on my MA in Military History. This article sounds exactly like the ones I read in the major women's magazines starting around February, 1944. The articles were anticipating the return of men from the military and were preparing wives for how to behave. Same thing - don't ask them about their experiences in the military because you couldn't begin to understand it, don't expect them to do anything around the house, especially with the kids, because they had had a grueling time in the military and shouldn't be expected to have to do anything, etc. One of the articles had the best (?) tip - it told wives to have their handyman install a small mirror and shelf in the kitchen so that the wife could keep some lipstick, a comb and powder in the kitchen and tidy herself up quickly when she heard her husband approaching so that she would be appealing to him. Oy.

[bicentennial_baby]

31. While I find 99.9% of this to be odious...

I *do* agree that welcoming home your S.O. who has been working their ass off all day to put food on the table in a warm and loving manner is important...I do it every day, and it makes our home an even more happy place, if that's possible, hehe.. :D

[Ellen Forradalom]

38. I wouldn't stake my human worth on it

but putting a nice meal on the table is an act of love, certainly.

[bicentennial_baby]

47. I always say, cooking is love

Do it of your own volition, as "an act of love", as you say. Yes indeed...I do it for others, they do it for me...It's wonderful, and most appreciated on all ends :)

[Iniquitous Bunny]

56. I know what you're saying.

I cook for my guy. He cooks for me. It's working together in a household as a team, loving one another and taking care of each other. Sometimes I work or have class, he cooks. Sometimes he's working and I'm off, so I cook. Sometimes we cook together. We do for each other (and I'm sure your household does).

The problem with the original article was that it was totally sexist. In other words, what about her needs? The women of that time were expected to be these mindless drones doing for others at all times.

[IndyBob]

32. I worked one evening at my previous boss' house years ago

We were trying to catch up on a programming job we were working on. He and his wife are old-time Dutch, pleasant enough but strange.

He had his house rigged with an intercom. About 8 o'clock or so, he pushes the button on the intercom, "Joan, bring down some coffee please". Sure enough, less than 10 minutes later she is downstairs carrying a tray with the coffee, and asking with a smile if I wanted cream.

I was a little uncomfortable. If my dad tried something like this with my ma, he would have gotten his coffee - most likely poured over his head! :)

[graywarrior]

33. Where's the part about greeting him at the door dressed in saran wrap?

[OzarkDem]

43. That was in the 60's, right?

AFTER birth control pills became available.

[graywarrior]

46. Sily meeeeeee. That's when I bought all the saran wrap.

[Ellen Forradalom]

34. I'll be a little gay for him

He'd pay to see that.

[terrya]

40. I laughed when I read that.

Reminding us once again that the word "gay" has several meanings.

[Ellen Forradalom]

41. All of them delightful.

I myself am glad you homo perverts co-opted the word 'gay.'

[terrya]

45. We aim to please

Any other words you want us to corrupt, just let us know. :-)

[ScreamingMeemie]

35. God I suck at this "wife" stuff...

:shrug:

[Aristus]

36. Whew! Even my grandmother didn't subscribe to that bullshit!

And she's an ultra-ultra-conservative Southern Baptist.

She's always ruled the roost. And always will. My grandfather years ago perfected a resigned "Yes'm" for whatever my grandmother had to say. NOBODY puts Mama in the corner!

[Neshanic]

39. Yikes! All that is missing is her washing his feet in a gold bowl.

[xmas74]

44. I'm shocked that there weren't more murders at that time.

If these rules were in place today I could see the streets littered with dead husbands.

[pstokely]

48. It might be fake

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.htm

[sarge43]

50. .

[sarge43]

51. That particular piece could be a fake, but the attitude

is right on the money. As LibertyLover pointed out, popular magazines of the late 40's and 50's were full of articles like that. One (late 40's) I remember was a spit spewing diatribe about why our boys were marrying those foreign women. It seems American women just didn't pamper their men enough; they were too selfish and independent.

[yvr girl]

54. I have an old home economics text book from the 50's

It is this article almost verbatim. Seriously.

[CraftyGal]

49. I don't believe it......

:puke: :puke: TrogL usually bugs me about being a "good little wifey" I usually put him in his place. We work well together as we talk about what needs to be done, with the kids, with the house, everything. My mom never ascribed to the fifties look at gender roles. If some repair had to be don, mom did it. If dishes had to be done Dad did them. It wasn't any one particular gender that did these roles.

Crafty

[carlydenise]

52. OMG

Is this a joke? Or is this real?? LOL.........June Cleaver all the way. I don't think I would be able to vacuum wearing high heels...I think my mother-in-law had some of those qualities, no way did my mom, she was a bra-burning liberated woman, and I was raised the same way.

[JitterbugPerfume]

53. Read it?? I was expected to LIVE it

I failed miserably LOL

[Maestro]

55. That is just so demeaning.

I showed my wife this. She wanted to slap whoever wrote this tripe. I can't believe some people actually believed this!

[sakabatou]

58. Probably written by a guy

But that's just disgusting, the article... :puke:

[JitterbugPerfume]

59. the really sad thing is

that is REALLY what women were suppose to be like back then

we were suppose to have the shiniest floors

the whitest clothes

the neatest house

the shiniest kids

and all of our opinions were suppose to be what our husband told us to think .

I know that it is hard to believe , but when I told my pastors wife that my husband hit me her answer was "you made your bed , now you have to sleep in it "

She wanted to know what I did to deserve it

and that is the unvarnished truth