Handy Hints for Wives

Have to keep hubby happy - so I've become a wonderful little scrubber.

I PROMISED in my post called Handy Hints for Husbands that I would do a similar one for wives. For those of you who didn't read the original post or have forgotten it, it was about two little books of advice written in 1913.

As befitting the times, advice for women in the book Don'ts For Wives largely revolved around keeping house and keeping hubby happy.

Of course, every wife had to know her way around the kitchen, even it was just to tell the servants what to do.

I must get to grips with this one:  "Don’t be afraid of cold meat. A few cookery lessons, or even a good cookery book, with the use of a little intelligence, will make you mistress of delicious ways of serving up leftovers."

And I mustn't forget this: "Don’t omit to pay your husband a compliment. If he looks nice dressed for the opera, tell him so. If he has been successful with his chickens, or his garden, compliment him." Darn it, the last time we went to the opera I clean forgot to tell him he looked nice. I hope he has forgiven me.

This one is going to be harder to keep to:  "Don’t say 'I told you so' to your husband, however much you feel tempted to. It does no good, and he will be grateful to you for not saying it."

This is one piece of advice written in all seriousness: “Don’t let your husband wear a violet tie with grass-green socks. If he is unhappily devoid of the colour sense, he must be forcibly restrained.”

I mustn't forget to, “Listen for his latchkey and meet him on the threshold." As he steps through the door I must gauge whether he is ‘nervy'. If he is it could be that his "tea habit is getting too strong in him" and I must keep a watch on him.

I directed this one at the dearly beloved and got a glare in return: “Beauty is only skin-deep and the cleverest men are rarely the handsomest.”

I also referred him to: "Don’t be discontented and think your husband not manly because he happens to be short and thin, and not very strong. Manliness is not a purely physical quality."

He glared at me even more and now he's not talking to me - so that's a bonus.


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