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A friend of mine forwarded me the following e-mail just now:
subject: Actual Ad from 1955
My sides STILL hurt from laughing!
I’d be so divorced!!!
hope it gives ya smile!
xoxo
………….
An Actual 1955 Housekeeping Monthly article.
Ok, when you girls stop laughing long enough to pick yourself off the floor, forward this to all the women you know, so they can have a good laugh, too.
I didn’t laugh when I read this article. In fact, I noticed that the vast majority of it is still very relevant for both men and women. Yes, some of it is completely antiquated, like the bit about never questioning your man. What concerns me more than some clipping from fifty years ago is the cranky attitude post-feminist women sometimes take toward the idea that they owe their men anything at all. Being dismissive, contentious, and demanding is no way to behave, unless you enjoy acting like a three-year-old having a fit. I’m a big fan of the Dr. Laura school of thought, and she wouldn’t disagree with too much of what’s written here, especially if the wife is a stay-at-home mom.
If your job — your economic contribution to the home — is to be a homemaker, then make the home. He brings home the bacon, so it’s your job to cook it. With a smile. That’s called a partnership. Doesn’t that sound like more fun than being a whiny, self-entitled bee-otch? The comment in the forwarded message “I’d be so divorced!!!” is true if you don’t think your husband deserves any kind of respect, support, or affection. It brings to mind a passage from one of my favorite books by Dr. Laura:
If your man comes home after a horrible defeat at work, and you look into his eyes and tell him, “Honey, I know you will be able to find a way to take care of this situation because I’ve seen you conquer problems for us so many times over the years. I believe in you,” he will be able to conquer. If, instead, you yell, scream, put him down, get all depressed, whiny, and blaming, and threaten him with the loss of his family, you’ll see quickly that your response was more destructive to his entire being than whatever happened at work. The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage p.16
Read: Cranky hags never get boyfriends. But if through some miracle they manage to trick a guy into marrying them, he ain’t never going to bring her roses at the end of the day once he sees what she really is. And Dr. Laura isn’t the only one who got it right. I can think of an even fancier way of saying it:
A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it . . . And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war where they should kneel for peace . . . Come, come, you froward and unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, My heart as great, my reason haply more, To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our lances are but straws, Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene ii
Shakespeare pre-empted Dr. Laura by 400 years and not only handed out great relationship advice, he put it in blank verse. Booyah. I’m grateful for everything feminism has done for us, but I don’t ever want to see the pendulum swing over so far that women become domineering shrews instead of affectionate, mutually supportive partners. Because a “good wife” should know her place; it’s right beside her spouse, putting a big happy smile on their face.
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