Good Wife’s Guide
The Good Wife’s Guide is an article rumored to have been published in a magazine called Housekeeping Monthly in 1955. It outlines how a woman should act as a wife in support of her husband.
The origin of the Good Wife’s Guide is disputed, as there is no evidence of such a magazine or article ever existing. It has circulated around the Internet for years. However, it’s still worth examining, as it does make some interesting points.
The guide reminds us, even if it’s not actually from the 1950s, of how society, relationships, marriage and family has changed in just a matter of decades.
The Good Wife’s Guide Article
Original Points
- 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 get home and the prospect of a good meal 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.
- 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.
- Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.
- Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc and then run a dustcloth over the tables.
- 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 to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
- Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (If they are small), bomb 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.
- Be happy to see him.
- Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
- 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.
- 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.
- Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order, and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
- Don’t greet him with complaints or problems.
- 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.
- Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him 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, soothing and pleasant voice.
- 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.
- A good wife always knows her place.
The Modern Good Wife’s Guide
What would the Good Wife’s Guide look like if made in 2025, 70 years after the alleged creation? Without creating a woke version, let’s just imagine from a man’s perspective what should stay the same and what should be changed…
- Have dinner ready or cook together.
- As a man who loves cooking, preparing dinner together can be a team effort. I love cooking Tex-Mex, Chinese and Japanese food. This is something I would prefer to do with no intervention, so my wife would take the cleaning role. Many restaurant chefs are also men, and I imagine some would want to rest at home, yet some would love to cook at home. So this is a matter of preference. I just know I love my food so much. But, if I am not willing to cook that day, she should have dinner ready.
- Prepare yourself.
- A ribbon is probably not in fashion anymore, but it seems to be coming back with Kawaii and other Japanese trends. Aside from that, this point cannot be disputed.
- Be a little joyful and a little more interesting.
- Gay has a different meaning these days, having previously meant joy, but I have no problem with women bringing more women home! Joyful would be the appropriate word these days.
- Clear away the clutter.
- Again, there is really nothing to dispute here. A clean home inspires a clean mind.
- Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc.
- This is basically the same as the previous point.
Prepare and light a fire. Don’t touch the fucking thermostat.- Most homes don’t have fireplaces. This is true even for the 1950s. These days we have thermostats… The Nest Thermostat can be setup easily thanks to advancements in technology, so that a man can control it by voice command or through his phone. It can be set to turn on or off the heating at certain times. If you ever touched the thermostat and got yelled at by your dad (Or landlord; I have literally witnessed this), you know exactly what I mean… Don’t touch the fucking thermostat.
- Prepare the children.
- I cannot disagree with this one, so I wouldn’t change anything. But I would like to highlight something my father realized when his mother and father; my grandparents, died… My grandparents always turned off the TV when they had visitors. I can really attest to the importance of coming into a home that is quiet and attentive to you, instead of a loud and chaotic home with music and TVs blasting noise. I only remember one time in my entire life when my paternal grandparents had the TV on, and that is because we were watching Ghostbusters (1984) on VCR because I wanted to.
- Be happy to see him.
- This literally should be set in stone. It cannot be disputed.
- Greet him with a warm smile.
- There’s nothing to dispute here.
- Listen to him.
- There isn’t much that is more frustrating than a woman who doesn’t listen, especially in the interest of everyone. Being asked of something as soon as you finally sit down is extremely annoying too, something I have seen many times in my own family.
- Make the evening his and prepare date nights.
- I don’t think every single day should be dedicated to me relaxing after work. There should be at least one day per week that the family spends together; for me this is a Saturday. There should also be at least one day per week that is a date night just for me and my wife. If you are short on time, then this could be made Saturday night. However, date nights require a bit of effort and planning, and the wife should at least take on the majority of the planning efforts on this.
- Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order, and tranquility.
- There will always be arguments, but as a general rule, the home really does need to be a place of peace. Let the man go to the bathroom and take a shit in peace. But if you do ever have an argument, never sleep on it. Always resolve the issue before bedtime. A lingering problem inevitably becomes a bigger problem.
- Don’t greet him with complaints or problems.
- A wife will be greeted in return with frustration and negativity if her husband is greeted with negativity.
- Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner.
- If a wife has insecurities about where her husband has been, she should aim to resolve her insecurities peacefully, without making threats or attempting to punish him for not updating her on such things in advance.
- Make him comfortable.
- The extent of providing comfort might be different for each person. But facilitating the necessary amount of comfort will be appreciated.
- Arrange his pillow
and offer to take off his shoes.- Having my wife take off my shoes is pretty unnecessary. A man is capable of these little things and should not be suffocated with motherly things. When my daughter was old enough to put on her shoes by herself, I told my wife to stop helping her. People should be self-sufficient with such basics.
- Don’t ask him questions about his actions.
- I resonate with this because you should trust me with my actions. My actions should speak for themselves, and I do not want to justify every little move I make just to explain to someone something that isn’t even worth my time explaining. As Captain of the ship, I should not be questioned. I will rule with authority without being slowed down by unnecessary bullshit.
- A good wife always knows her place.
- I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. Send her back to the kitchen!
Quit Bitchin’, Get To The Kitchen
I like to make jokes, and it’s easy for people of a lower intellect to take things too seriously and judge things on a surface level perception.
Having married a Peruvian woman in 2019, I have possibly become more conservative over time due to the conservative culture of her country. I learned the importance of family thanks to Peru. But through my maternal grandfather, I learned the importance of having a dark sense of humor.
After my maternal grandfather died, my grandmother told me a story over a decade later. They went on a trip to Amsterdam once, and were on a tour walking through Amsterdam’s Red Light District. My grandfather spotted a prostitute in a window, and yelled through the glass, ‘don’t go anywhere, I gotta get rid of this one first!’… ‘This one’ being my grandmother.
This was the funniest thing I had ever heard in relation to my grandfather. And to hear the story so lovingly from my grandmother was the cherry on top. These little funny stories are what people will remember, years after you’re gone.
It’s important to take care of each other and not take everything too seriously. The best relationships are those without walking on eggshells, worried that you might offend each other over something so small, when life is so much bigger. Ultimately, the most important message of the Good Wife’s Guide is stability, peace and understanding. It might miss a few things, like going into more depth on communication. But is holds remarkably well in the 21st century.
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