These 1950s 'tips to look after your husband' are quite the read

[Soph0571]

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/05/21/these-1950s-tips-to-look-after-your-husband-are-quite-the-read/

Of course. UGH.

Meanwhile a headline in the daily mail today be like...



But hey that is OK cause as the 1950's tell us:

Prepare the children.
‘Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.’

Get into the kitchen and push out those puppies as the fascist theocratic state demands, if they get their way.

Far right theocratic cray cray are gong to have forced birth by any means necessary. No contraception, no sex outside marriage, forced birth in all circumstances. When are these nutters going to realise that the Handmaid Tale is not a rule book to live by? Or trying to mirror some of the controls the Taliban impose on women is not a good luck.

[634-5789]

1. Yep. I'm 70, so yep, I remember this 50's foolishness!

TY for posting.

[Walleye]

2. Me too. I still get a visceral reaction. Infuriated

[MuseRider]

19. Same.

It just ruins part of the day to remember all of that crap on TV and everywhere. Was there ever something written for men on how to let their wives have better lives? As far as I know there was not but then they were the perfect sex and never needed help with anything having to do with their behavior. Lord knows, no man alive was ever expected to even treat women nicely. Their castle you know.

[Nay]

20. Me as well. It pissed me off then and it pisses me off now.

[3Hotdogs]

15. Foolishness?

Shit, where can I find me a woman do all that?

[634-5789]

23. Go back to the cave. Ugh.

[snowybirdie]

3. And never forget

the Wrap yourself in Satan Wrap too to greet your husband at the door! Our the kids somewhere, I guess.

[Girard442]

5. (Sigh) Supermarkets around here plumb out of Satan wrap. :(

[3catwoman3]

18. I don't know if this is an unintentional and hysterical...

…typo, or if you did it on purpose, but

[Girard442]

4. Y'know a REAL man would step up and do some of that stuff for her.

[Chipper Chat]

6. 2nd paragraph sez:

Be a little gay and more interesting.
oh well, if hubby is into that.

[wnylib]

11. When I was in grade school in the 1950s,

I had a friend whose first name was Gay. At that time the word simply meant happy and light-hearted.

By the time we were in high school, she was using her middle name to avoid the jokes and said that she would change it legally as soon as she could.

[IronLionZion]

12. Reminds me of a funny scene in Masters and Johnson

a woman went to them because her husband wouldn't bang her. They diagnosed him as queer and she responded "Yes this is very queer" and they had to educate her on homosexuality.

[kaotikross]

7. As a man who helped raise three kids

I'd have to say I've had night's like this article recommends. One, I think.
I don't think anybody actually lived like this, TV just pretended they did.

[mgardener]

9. I remember

Washing face and hands and changing our clothes (if they were dirty from playing).
Dinner was ready when my dad got home.
Early 60's

[sl8]

8. Snopes:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/how-to-be-a-good-wife/

How to Be a Good Wife

Did a list of ten steps on how to be a good wife come from a 1950s high school home economics textbook?

Snopes Staff
Published 18 March 2001


Unproven
About this rating

Origin

It has become fashionable to portray outdated societal behaviors and attitudes — ones we now consider desperately wrongheaded — to be worse than they really were as a way of making a point about how much we’ve improved. When we despair over the human condition and feel the need for a little pat on the back, a few startling comparisons between us modern enlightened folks and those terrible neanderthals of yesteryear give us that. We go away from such readings a bit proud of how we’ve pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and with our halos a bit more brightly burnished.

The juxtaposition of wonderful modernity with a tawdry past also serves to reinforce the ‘rightness’ of current societal stances by making any other positions appear ludicrous. It reminds folks of the importance of holding on to these newer ways of thinking and to caution them against falling back into older patterns which may be more comfortable but less socially desirable. Such reinforcement works on the principle that if you won’t do a good thing just for its own sake, you’ll surely do it to avoid being laughed at and looked down upon by your peers.

A typical vessel for this sort of comparison is the fabricated or misrepresented bit of text from the “olden days,” some document that purportedly demonstrates how our ancestors endured difficult lives amidst people who once held truly despicable beliefs. Want to prove that American slaveholders were even more vile than we could possibly imagine? Just point people to the apocryphal Slave Consultant’s Narrative. Remind someone what easy lives we lead these days by showing him an alleged list of rules for teachers from 1872. Or poke fun at Victorian sexual attitudes (or modern day feminism) by trotting out a piece of Advice to Young Brides.

Yet another piece of “olden days” text, typically titled “How to Be a Good Wife” or “The Good Wife’s Guide,” is said to have originated with a 1950s-era home economics textbook. Is it real, or is it yet another of those “look how far we’ve come” fabrications?

[...]

[wnylib]

14. Those of us who lived in the 1950s

can confirm that the attitude was real, regardless of the source of the rules.

Here is a song that I remember from the early 1960s:

https://genius.com/Jack-jones-wives-and-lovers-lyrics

[Nay]

22. Yep. There were plenty of 'housewife' books that advocated everything

in that list. They maybe didn't sound as smarmy as this example, but that was the attitude, esp in churchgoing families (which was just about everyone). Dad just mowed the lawn and washed the car on Saturday. Big whoopee.

[ms liberty]

10. "They are little treasures" right up until the little darlings become teenagers

Take up with some beatnik with a mustache and sunglasses, and start hanging out in the park with their kooky friends listening to that rock music.

Really, it sounds more like one of those sixties family comedies than any reality we know today. I cannot believe women had to live like this but I know they did, because it didn't start changing until I was a teen.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. The more submissive the less respected

and both sides, for their own reasons, hated the roles though they didn't know it.

[samnsara]

16. my mom was NOT a 50s housewife for sure

..thank gawd!

[jimfields33]

17. The ones who were apparently

got little helper pills from her doctor. I heard that but not sure it’s true. But it has been said on many tv shows.

[3catwoman3]

21. Either shortly before or shortly after she married my father...

…one of his parents told my mother that she should be sure to keep a supply of rubbing alcohol on hand so she could massage my dad’s feet and legs when he got home from work! 1948.

As far as I know, she did not take that advice.

[Bayard]

24. My Mom kept my Dad's dinner warm on the stove

As a salesman, he could get home very late at night. We ate hours earlier because my two diabetic sisters had to be on a regular schedule. During the week, we may not see much of him.

But Sundays were great! Always church first, and then my Dad would get 4 kids (the little brother hadn't arrived yet) on their bicycles, and off we'd go, while Mom cooked the big Sunday lunch. Before I was big enough to ride a bike, he would strap a pillow to the cross bar of the boy's Schwinn, and that's where I'd ride sidesaddle. 1960's......