How to Be a Good Wife
How to Be a Good Wife
The best knowledge we collectively have at this date falls short of confirming or disproving “How to Be a Good Wife” as a genuine article of dusty literature, but it may as well be real for all the fuss, chuckling, contemptuous snorting, and eyeball-rolling it has caused over the years. For the uninitiated, these are ten “tips” about pleasing your man that were supposed to have appeared in a 1955 issue of aw, who the hell knows what. Sources vary as “Housekeeping Monthly” or “a home economics textbook”. It’s always fun to hand over the tips to a coarse, brittle, man-bashing feminist, and stand back & watch the sparks fly:
- Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. 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 prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
- Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll 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.
- Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquillity where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
And so on and so on. Available ladies, prepare yourselves for a shocker. A smart man who is anxious for you to sleep with him, will outwardly snicker and guffaw right along with you at these laughable anachronisms. But most men, when you aren’t in the room, agree that about half of these points are pretty good ideas. In fact, if you’re trying to make a good impression on a typical man, you’d better be selective about which lines get a snort and which ones don’t.
As a man, throughout my age of availability, when I was in the market (I no longer am), I used to keep my eyes peeled and ears open for which line got the most derisive chuckle from an object of my affection. As I became older and wiser, with relationship disasters behind me, I observed things like this more and more carefully. And gradually I became aware that all the other wise, careful men, were doing the same thing.
Men just don’t look at these “tips” the same way as women. So ladies, if you’re reviewing this article in the company of your man (who probably brought it to you, right?), do your snorting and eyeball-rolling carefully. Many of you could do with a male perspective, and I’ve probably dated a lot more women than you have. So take note of the following, especially the score on a scale of 0, yeah this one’s a crock, through 10, if you have a problem with this I have a problem with you.
- “A good wife always knows her place.” Score: 1. If this is serious at all, it was written by a man. What a dick.
- “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. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.” Score: 1.5. Children are children. Home is home. If they can’t play there they can’t play anywhere, and if they can’t play anywhere the man ends up spending a lot of money to listen to some egghead tell him about ADD and ADHD, which they didn’t have in 1955. Who the hell needs it?
- “Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.” Score: 2. What a load of crap. Building fire is a man’s job. Who in the world wants to come home to a wife going on about “Hah, hah, I can build a fire quicker than you can, nyah nyah nyah.” Let’s face it, if a woman builds a fire nowadays and actually gets it going, that’s the first thing she’s gonna do. I just got home from work for Chrissakes.
- “Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.” Score: 3. Make one last trip? What am I supposed to be doing, putting on a white glove and conducting an inspection? I don’t feel like it. Besides, I’m a man. Men don’t see dirt.
- “Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. and then run a dustcloth over the tables.” Score: 3. Make sure I’m not likely to trip over anything, and I’m happy as a clam. See above. What is this thing you women call “dust”?
- “Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low soothing and pleasant voice.” Score: 3. I’ll settle for “don’t hysterically yell at me”. If your natural voice is soprano, a low soothing voice would probably freak me out.
- “Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll 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.” Score: 4. There is something to this. Fifteen minutes is not much, and if I have to come home to a frazzled harridan who’s bitching and kvetching about how tough she has it and how busy she is (which over the years, I have had to do), it tells me this is a woman who likes to start fights. I’m not saying such grievances are unreasonable — us men can avoid work, ingeniously, without knowing we’re doing it. But there are ways to address the unfair labor distribution without blowing up at the poor guy. And hey, if fifteen minutes can put you in a better mood when the poor slob gets home, and you fail to get that done, what does it say about your time management skills for the rest of your day? Any man with a brain is going to have a tough time assuming the lion’s share of the blame, even if he knows he is partially guilty.
- “Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.” Score: 4. The “stays out all night” is completely unreasonable. Really, it depends on the prior plans made. But I went and gave it a four because hey, if you know something is keeping him, and you bawl him out anyway, you’re being a bitch. It’s not 1955 anymore. There are microwaves.
- “Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. 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 prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.” Score: 5. If the menu, Monday through Friday, as well as the weekend, is “whatever you feel like whipping up or ordering in, because I’m way too tired” then as a woman, you don’t really want to be married or live with a man. Hell yeah, it makes us feel unwelcome. Men who agree with you in guffawing at this, are liars. They are after some poontang.
- “Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you. Instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure, and his very real need to be at home and relax.” Score: 5. I’m assuming there was some advance planning involved. Granted, if the ol’ lady is slaving over a hot stove all afternoon and she gets a phone call at six o’clock that he’s decided to get a meal at Black Angus with the guys, then that’s what normal people call an “asshole.”
- “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.” Score: 6. You’re Goddamn right. Who in his right mind wants to come home to some raging butterface bitch pissing & moaning about the asshole who cut you off on the freeway without signalling, your car is making some funny noise, etc. etc. Ladies, face it. Any man who was weak enough to learn to adapt to that every night without complaint, you wouldn’t want after awhile.
- “Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.” Score: 6. I can see why if you’ve got your own problems you might be preoccupied from doing this, but what in the hell would be wrong with it every now and then? Like ooh, we’ve really condemned you to indentured servitude, now that we’ve got you bringing us glasses with liquid in them. Get a grip, gals.
- “Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquillity where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.” Score: 6.5. Sounds like a great goal to me. You have to grant me this much: If you succeed at the goal, the marriage will probably work, and if you don’t, it probably won’t. If you’re unwilling to concede that, but have never actually tried it, it’s pretty tough to take you seriously. Besides, if a woman really does make that her goal and starts to succeed at it on a regular basis, it will be dang nigh impossible to get cross with her, act surly around her, develop any laziness about getting her the things she wants — basically, being a nurturing, supportive husband would become an unavoidable habit.
- “Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.” Score: 7. If I was on a first-date with a woman and she snorted or rolled her eyes at that one, there would not be a second date, I guaran-damn-tee it. Women who don’t want to please men, waste perfectly good vital organs, corneas, vaginas and skin that could be used by somebody else.
- “Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment 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.” Score: 7. Of course I am assuming you really have no right to question him. If it’s a money thing under discussion, and the woman is working or has taken over the bill-paying, naturally that goes out the window. But a lot of women like to declare the upkeep of the cars, or the finances, or in some cases even the pets’ veterinary needs “Not My Turf” and let the stud take care of it all. Once that’s relinquished, there’s no getting it back again. Let him exercise the judgment you have chosen to trust. And if there’s anybody else in the room who isn’t in the marriage, even the kids, then save your questions for private one-on-one time. This is just common sense, to everyone except for women who like to get married so they can do a lot of arguing.
- “Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first -remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.” Score: 7. I agree, not because he’s the man and she’s the woman, but because, Jesus H. Christ the poor bastard just got home. It’s just like letting people walk out of an elevator before you walk on. A chatterbox putting me in my place as the “shoulder to cry on” when I walk in my own front door, makes me wonder why I’m walking through that door and not some other door. And it’s an appalling lack of common sense.
- “Be happy to see him.” Score: 8. Any woman who would object to that, I don’t even want to know.
- “Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.” Score: 9. This should be grounds for divorce.
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