How to Be a 1950's Housewife (A Tounge and Cheek Tale)

How to be a 1950's Housewife

Originally found in a 1950's high school home economics textbook, teaching girls how to prepare for married life.

1. Have dinner ready: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him, and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.

2. Prepare yourself: Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work- weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.

 

3. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too.

4. 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.

5. Minimize the noise: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, dishwasher or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

6. Things to avoid: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he's late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.

7. Make him comfortable: Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

8. Listen to him: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.

9. Make the evening his: Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment; instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.

10. The goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax.

Okay, now for a dose of reality. Let's face it - this just isn't appropriate advice for most American couples today. With the two-person income there's no time for all this coddling, cooking and so fourth.

But what if there was?

What would happen to your marriage or relationship if you quit your job and stayed home to run the house, took up cooking and cleaning and minding the children? Now, I'm not saying this lifestyle choice is right for everyone, and there are tons of blogs that cater to other ways of living. But here, I suggest, what would happen if you tried just a few of the things on the list above? What if you freshened up before your husband came home from work? What if you had dinner ready on the table, or at least take-out, nicely set? What if you made your partner feel like more of a priority in your life? How do you think that would impact your relationship?

Perhaps you could give it a try and see how your partner responded to the hightened respect and interest you've invested into the relationship. What's the worst that could happen? Even if your partner doesn't respond to your liking, you'll still have a cleaner house!

 

Sex in the 50's

The contraceptive pill wasn't approved by the FDA until the early 1960's, so the control of sex, and there within, pregnancy, fell largely on women, changing the sexual freedom we enjoy in relationships today dramatically different. Or so one would think. Imagine how this affected dating and marriages. Would it make a man more likely to look for intercourse outside of the marriage, searching for sex without consequences?


Affair's in the 1950's: 

In his infamous report (first name) Kinsey found that one in four men admitted to having had sex with prostitutes and one in five women owned up to an extra-marital affair. 
How do those numbers correspond with the men of the 2010's? According to a 2007 MSNBC and iVillage survey, 44 percent of married men have an affair. According to MSNBC, men usually cheat during the third to fifth years if they are unsatisfied with their sex life.

Was oral sex more prevalent in the 50's than today? 
It's hard to say for sure, though the  term "giving head" was added to the American vocabulary in the 1950's. One could make the assertion that a woman might be more receptive to this type of sexual activity in preference to sexual intercourse as for the unmarried woman it saved her "honor" for marriage, and for both married and unmarried women presented no concern for pregnancy. 

Men's magazines and the introduction of Playboy will be discussed more in another entry, soon to come. 

Did grandma have more sex than me? 
(Reprinted from the original article by David Ward, in The Guardian, Friday 6 August 2004 01.44 BST)

"You may not believe this but Prima magazine says it so it must be true: married women have less sex today than their grandmothers did. The magazine said women in the 1950s had sex an average of twice a week. But a survey found two-thirds of today's women said they were too tired to manage that much. Cynics may say the fact that there was only one television station 50 years ago, which shut down at about 10pm, could be a factor. Prima's study focused on how women's attitudes towards love, sex and marriage had changed since the 1940s. It found that sex before marriage was now the norm, with four out of five couples sleeping together by the fifth date; but after marriage the passion died down." 

References:

MSNBC: Cheating Heart

We Had More Sex in the 50's. Survey Says

David Ward The Guardian, Friday 6 August 2004 01.44 BST

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-data.html