Lessons For The Modern Wife

In May of 1955, Housekeeping Monthly published an article called The Good Wife's Guide.

It was enormously informative and every bit as relevant to today's female spouse as it was in 1955.

It provided tips on how a good wife could comfort her man when he got home from work.

Some examples:

"Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it."


".............. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction."

"Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him."

"Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours."

"Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you."

"Don't complain if he's late home for dinner or even stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day."

"Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him."

"A good wife always knows her place."

This is more common sense than advice. Any woman should know this intuitively. It is the natural order of things and it is right.

I'm not 100% sure Carol gets this, but then again she is a woman and it is impossible to savvy exactly what the hell she is thinking.

I get home and I tell her my day was brutal, filled with remarkable stupidity and selfishness on the part of the lazy, brainless idiots that I work with. I say it with exasperation and a whiskey in my hand.

She says "Big deal big boy, my day sucked too. What are you going to cook me for supper?"

I think maybe the tables have been turned on me but I am not sure. So I spend the next hour whipping up for her a meal.

After we chow down I begin to delineate item by item the incredibly stupid and vicious things my idiot co-workers pulled that day, and she pretends to be deaf in her right ear.

And she responds "I am so happy Jacoby Ellsbury is back in the lineup. Can you grab me that box of dark chocolate truffles?"

She is crocheting and has 213 rows of work draped over her lap so, even though I have two cats sleeping on me - one by my feet, one on my chest, I disturb them to stagger up and grab the truffles.

As I sit back down, one of the cats scratches my hand as the other purposefully knocks my glasses to the floor next to the recliner.

Instead of saying thank you, Carol says: "There are only two truffles left. Did you eat the others? Did you pick up another box on the way home?"

I think she is basically on track about being a good wife and knowing her place. I think all she needs is maybe a little tweaking in her approach.

I have blown the Housekeeping Monthly article up to poster size and Monday, after she leaves for work and before I do, I am going to paste it up on the living room wall right next to the TV.

For easy reference.

I am also going to buy her flowers on the way home that night and clean the bathroom when I arrive and cook her favorite supper and wash and wax The Peace Mobile before we eat.

Just in case she takes all this the wrong way.

Although I can't imagine it happening.

The article is informative and relevant.

Every bit as much as it was in 1955.