In Bossypants, Tina Fey, one of the world’s Very Good Things, wrote this about women’s impossible quest to be acceptably attractive.
“Every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits.”
Of course, the standards of beauty change with each generation, just to ensure that women are forever playing a losing game. The porn-inspired standards of hairlessness, for example, and the adventures in eyebrowing which are current beauty tropes, have rather left me behind in a Generation X-rated befuddlement.
In 1924, these were the following rules of Spanish Female Beauty. At least, as according to The Gloucestershire Echo.
Tina Fey’s “full Spanish lips” were, ironically, not to be seen then – lips are dictated to be red, narrow and fine. The extreme hourglass figure is the one to gain approval – wide front, narrow, long waist and large hips.
I can’t imagine anything designated “large” being in the conception of female beauty right now.
The Gloucestershire Echo, 11th January 1924
SPANISH FEMALE BEAUTY
There are thirty “ifs” in the Spanish conception of female beauty:-
If Three things are white – Skin, teeth, and hands;
Three things black – Eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes;
As the proud owner of a six year old boy, I’ve recently been inducted in the world of the nit. In one evening I went from never having even seen a head louse in my life, to being a rather immediate expert in them. Judging by other parents comments, and the sheer volume of head lice adverts around at the moment, there may be something of an epidemic of the little blighters around at the minute. I’m going to blame the strange, mild, wet and windy weather we’ve been having, if that has anything to do with these things. It’s also my go-to reason as to why I’ve had non-stop colds for the past three months.
It inspired me to have a quick look through the archives for advice on head lice in days gone by. I quickly found out that It Was My Fault. Apparently alongside Jerry Hall’s advice that a woman be “a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom,” a woman should also be wielding a nitty-gritty comb and a bar of foul-smelling Derbac soap in the bathroom too.
Gloucestershire Echo, 16th June 1921
Derbac is still available, fighting the good fight against those pesky lice.
Hand-shaming here in 1939 by Hinds Honey and Almond hand cream.
Daily Herald, 1st March 1939
“I try to hide my horrible hands,” says a woman whose hands are dried out from the washing and housework at home. To be fair, washing laundry by hand is absolutely brutal on the skin. It’s so bad that “No-one ever dances with me twice – I’m sure it’s my horrible hands that keep men away.”
A spot of Hinds Cream later, and she has “Honeymoon Hands”, whatever they are – does it mean hands as soft as the women who have managed to get married? Or have her new improved hands resulted in an immediate proposal?
Apparently Hinds is still a popular brand of hand cream in Mexico and Argentina, and now owned by GlaxoSmithKline. I don’t know if they still sell the Honey and Almond variety, though – analysis in 1917 by the American Medical Association showed that there was no honey in the formula at all, but that clearly hadn’t prevented them marketing it as such for at least the next 20 years.
It’s funny how this is pretty much the same basic premise as that of Fairy Liquid, which cut out the need to use hand cream (supposedly, although not actually in reality, in my experience) with their “Hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid.” At least it didn’t go on about your horrible hands though, and it assumed the woman was already married. Hooray!
I read something once that said that “the good old days” have always been regarded as being around 50 years ago. That’s 50 years ago from the vantage point of whatever the current year is. I suppose for the older generation, it was the time of their rose-tinted youth, and for everyone younger, it was a semi-legendary time just out of reach – near enough to feel like we’re almost part of it, but long enough ago to feel definitely of a different age.
Of course, now the 1960s are an unbelievable 50 years ago and are officially “the good old days”. I wasn’t there, but that is absolutely my sentiment now. Ever since I was a teenager I wished I was somehow, magically in the 1960s. I thought if I thought about it hard enough, I might wake up in 1967. But it never happened (obviously).
One of my favourite books in 1987 was “It was twenty years ago today” by Derek Taylor, telling the story of the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper, and the exciting times of 1967. As I was 13 at the time, 20 years ago was an unimaginably long length of time to me. That was 28 years ago now, and the thought I was then closer in time to Sergeant Pepper than I am now to the time I read the book almost doesn’t compute in my mind. The march of time is a strange and wondrous thing.
Lord Malmesbury in 1926 was certainly of the opinion that the youth of today didn’t know they were born. As pretty much every generation thinks about the next one, or the one after, at some point. And the younger generation in turn are baffled and dismiss the oldies as not knowing what the hell they’re talking about.
As Zygon Clara wisely said in Doctor Who the other week, “You’re just middle-aged. No offence, but everybody middle-aged always thinks the world’s about to come to an end. It never does.”
Malmesbury comes to the frankly startling conclusion that womens place is in the wrong, them and their damned emancipation, and “the wage-earning classes” leave much to be desired. Upper class males were absolutely unreproachable though, no problem there. Hang on though – what exactly does he mean by “the gradual weakening of the individualism which had hitherto characterised our race”? Is he talking about mixed race relationships?
Portsmouth Evening News, 24th February 1926
LORD MALMESBURY’S
WARNING ______________
Abnormality of Youth ______________
“There is something wrong with the youth of to-day – something not quite normal,” said the Earl of Malmesbury, speaking on “Modern Youth” at the 1912 Club in London last night.
The value of youth, he said, could not be estimated, but lately we had been indulging in an actual worship of youth, which was wrong. We must have ideals, but we had been disposed to make youth an idol, rather than an ideal.
The worship, and too great freedom of youth, was largely due to the emancipation of women.
The children, seeing their mothers bent upon amusing themselves, thought they could do the same, and a child always took the cue from the mother, and not from the father.
Young men of what was formerly called the “leisured classes” had greatly improved in tone and character, although the girls of the same classes still showed room for improvement.
In the great mass of the young people of the wage-earning classes, the most deplorable feature was the gradual weakening of the individualism which had hitherto characterised our race.”
This August the most zeitgeisty thing you could be doing was voting in the Labour Party leadership election. Specifically, voting for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership election, if the “Jez We Can” polls are to be believed.
That his campaign has steadily grown in strength while press coverage for him has been relentlessly negative is fascinating – even The Guardian of all papers ran article after article warning of the disaster to come if he was elected. But who knows what will happen? We learned how unreliable polls could be a few months ago on the day of the General Election. And if Corbyn does win, maybe it will be a disaster, maybe it will be the start of a new era, or maybe it will be less interesting than anyone currently thinks. As far as I’m concerned though, this is an exciting time for grass-roots Labour supporters right now.
As we’ve seen though, the press is overwhelmingly against Corbyn. And I can’t see that changing if he is elected leader. The furore of the last few days over the idea of reinstating women-only train carriages reminds me of the 1980s, where “looney left” was thrown around as a conversation-ending, ridicule-inducing tactic for left wing policy ideas. Notice how there wasn’t this furore when Tory Transport Minister Claire Perry mooted the idea herself not too long ago?
“Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages. My intention would be to make public transport safer for everyone from the train platform, to the bus stop to on the mode of transport itself. However, I would consult with women and open it up to hear their views on whether women-only carriages would be welcome – and also if piloting this at times and modes of transport where harassment is reported most frequently would be of interest.”
It wasn’t his idea, and it’s not even something he’s definitely proposing. He’s simply listened to women giving their opinions and offered a consultation process on their brainstormed ideas to solve a problem.
It might well be decided to be an ineffective idea, in the end, but shouting down the debate before it even starts, well, it’s doesn’t feel very helpful – a sign of a media that is encouraged to be full of fully-formed, strongly-held opinions on everything, immediately. If we don’t have the space to consider new ideas without ridicule, then nothing much will change.
Well, I say “new ideas”, but this isn’t new, as has been repeatedly stated by opponent of the concept, worried that the way forward wouldn’t involve such a retrograde move. Railway carriages marked “Ladies Only” were finally withdrawn in 1977, when the old type of corridor-less train became obsolete. The old-style train was made up of a series of compartments with no access between them, and so was potentially a dangerous trap for a woman alone with a predatory man. Because of this style of carriage, and an increasing number of assaults suffered by female travellers on the trains, the concept of the women-only carriage was discussed from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards.
This article from 1874 shows that the Metropolitan railways had already introduced ladies’ carriages – but there was some debate as to whether this was legal. This was the first mention I found of women eschewing the ladies’ carriages in favour of sitting in the smoking compartments instead – an issue that men complained about for the next half century at least. I don’t know why women intuitively flocked to the smoking carriages for fifty years or more, but I would guess that it was because they were popular and so routinely full of travellers. Perhaps there may have been both less chance of being left alone with an unknown man, and a higher likelihood of other women travellers there as well. If not all train companies designated separate carriages for women, then it may have been easier to adopt this method instead.
Staffordshire Sentinel, 16th November 1874
There were a lot of reports of assaults on women on the railways in the nineteenth century, and the debate on ladies’ only carriages became a hot topic of the day. Here’s a letter from 1876 referring to recent attacks and calling for ladies’ carriages to be introduced in all trains.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 5th September 1887
And another, where Ellen Johnson was saved from attempting to jump from the train to escape her attacker, by another passenger walking along the outside footboard to reach her carriage.
Huddersfield Chronicle, 6th June 1891
This is a fantastic piece, quoted from the Queen – this wasn’t Queen Victoria wading into the debate, that wouldn’t have been quite her style. It’s Queen magazine – which is still around, although these days it’s called Harper’s Bazaar. It points out that the cases of assault on women that the public hears about are the dramatic ones – where the woman has fought off her assailant, or else felt forced to take the dramatic step of jumping from the train to escape. But “We hear nothing of the cases, probably far more numerous, where the woman, whether successful or not in keeping off her assailant, has afterwards from dread of publicity kept silent….The risk that a woman travelling by herself runs is not one whit less to-day than it was yesterday; indeed it is rather greater, for the opportunities for attack are greater.”
This piece describes how the Victorian communication cord used to work – it consisted of a cord on the outside of the train linked to the guard’s van. So a woman, mid-attack, would need to open the window, and attempt to reach the cord far above her head on the outside of the train, then pull it hard enough to attract the attention of the guard. The article calls for other means of instantaneous communication to be introduced, which could now be electrically-powered, and that this should be enforced by Parliament if the train companies did not agree of their own volition.
Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 16th April 1892
This article in The Morning Post from 1896 says that ladies didn’t tend to make use of specially-designated carriages very often, when they were available. Although there was apparently a litle known, and therefore little-used, policy of the railway staff being obliged to provide any women who asked with a suitable carriage to sit in which would then become a carriage where only women would be allowed to be admitted.
Morning Post, 5th August 1896
Morning Post, 5th August 1896
An MP, Mr Ritchie, confirms to a correspondent that The Board of Trade has written to all railway companies to encourage the introduction of women-only carriages on all their trains, in 1897.
Edinburgh Evening News, 26th March 1897
Commercial travellers complain about the long-standing “problem” of women sitting in the smoking compartments. This was evidently the Victorian and Edwardian equivalent of the person having a loud conversation on their phone in the “quiet carriage” today. Here, the problem is that “Travellers could walk up and down a train, and find every compartment labelled “smoking” packed with women and children, who gleefully looked out of the windows and smiled at those who wanted to smoke.” Smiling and gleefully looking out of the window – the cheek of it! Mr R. Mitchell, making the complaint, says that “he knew women often preferred to travel in smoking compartments because they said they felt safer; but he thought railway companies should prohibit women or children travelling in smoking compartments unless they were accompanied by a male adult.” Priorities, there.
Nottingham Evening Post, 28th October 1912
In 1924, the introduction of women-only carriages on all trains is still being discussed in the House of Commons – showing that it was still a far from widespread practice. Again, the issue of women in smoking compartments is raised, but this time it’s stated that this is quite likely to be on account of the lack of aforementioned ladies’ carriages. Mr “Not All Men” Becker was standing up for men’s rights here with his “May I ask whether carriages could be provided for men only?”
Gloucester Journal, 26th July 1924
As the old-style trains were replaced with the new designs, so the debate lessened. The issue has raised its head again now, because of the increased number of attacks on women on the railways – the number of sex offences on UK railways rose by a quarter last year. The idea of women-only carriages is still a current one in some countries – Japan, Brazil and India still have them, after all. My twopenn’orth is that this could only really be enforced, particularly on night trains, by guards on the train, and if there’s guards on the train, then why do you need the separate carriage? But I’m open to the discussion.
I had to double-check the date of this newspaper because 1912 seemed very early to be giving advice to women on what to wear in the workplace.
But then again, the invention of the typewriter had opened up a new field of jobs for women, and I found out that in 1901, 25% of office workers were women. And that meant there was a new market for appropriate women’s work-wear. It’s interesting reading this, as the proscribed new “uniform” for women in business is still relevant today – white shirts, black skirts, simple hairstyles…not much has changed in office-wear in 100 years.
Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 17th September 1912
A Dress Revolution
The Business Girl to Wear a Uniform
There are indications that a revolution in dress is imminent in the world of business women. The “gaudy typist” whose large hat, coloured stockings, suede shoes, jewellery and scent, have been the subject of adverse comment, will shortly be seen no more. Her place will be taken by the girl robed in black, dark blue, grey, or some other quiet colour, with skirt of decorous length, says the “Standard”. In short, the idea of office uniform for women is becoming increasingly popular amongst the heads of business houses where women typists and secretaries are extensively employed. Quite recently a large City firm drew up a code of dress regulations, to which every employee is expected to conform, and from which every dress accessory generally supposed to be dear to the heart of a typist is rigorously excluded.
Blouses of the “Peek-a-boo” type, against which American business men lately waged ruthless war to the disgust of the wearers, are strictly forbidden. These garments are to be of the shirt order and make of white silk.
A profusion of stray locks and curls not being considered conducive to concentrated thought, any attempt to dress the hair outside the plainest and simplest fashion is sternly repressed.
At first it seemed as if the new order of things would lead to open rebellion amongst those concerned, but the tact of the superintendent and the good sense of the girls themselves prevailed and the scheme is working quite well.
“Every office that employs women typists to any extent should insist on a uniform style of dress,” said the head of a large business establishment yesterday; “it looks more businesslike, and in my opinion, tend towards the increase of efficiency amongst the workers themselves. The girl who knows that her neighbour’s dress is precisely similar to her own is spared the temptation of studying its possible points of superiority, and my experience is that office dress helps to inculcate a businesslike frame of mind.”
An aside – these aren’t examples of work-wear as these ladies are at the races, but I do think these are absolutely beautiful examples of fashion from 1910. I would definitely wear the black and white fringed one (and her fabulous boots) right now.
I’ve posted before about the frisson of anger-enjoyment, perversely getting a bit of a kick out of things that wind you up. I had it in abundance in this curmudgeonly-in-the-extreme Advice for Wives article from 1895.
But here my feminist hackles are raised, good and proper. It’s a report from “The National Association of Schoolmasters” 1939 conference, where “a resolution opposing the principle of equality of salaries between men and women teachers was passed.” Well, they might have had to even go so far as to change the name of the association.
“It declared the application of equal pay must compel schoolmasters to accept a lower standard.”
The kicker is from Mr H. Meigh, mover of the proposition, who stated that “the feminist movement was a case of the tail wagging the dog. A small politically-minded section of advanced feminists in the teaching profession, who cursed their Maker because He did not allow them to enter the world wearing trousers, were prepared to cast aside the superiority which all true men automatically accorded them in favour of mere equality.”
Isn’t that annoying? All true men apparently consider women to be superior, in an undefined and unapparent way, and so why should women “settle” for equality?
I can’t help but be reminded of Bic’s recent woefully backwards-looking advert released for Women’s Day in South Africa – here. It’s a similarly irritating attempt to maintain the sexist status quo while cack-handedly pretending to compliment or inspire women. If Bic really thought that any one of their shameful statements was in any way progressive I’d be amazed. And never mind “Work like a boss”, how about “Get paid like a boss?”
A lovely little advert from 1914 for women’s facial hair removal. The “Ejecthair” system makes big promises – “It not only causes the hairs to instantly vanish, but without pain or harm kills the roots absolutely and forever.”
Ideal for women with the unusual “Laughing Cavalier” facial hair pattern.
Did you see the warning about skinny jeans the other day? There were news reports all over the place about it, with alerts on the dangers of “compartment syndrome” and that skinny jeans could be responsible for seriously damaging muscles and nerves in your legs. However, this is quite a good example of scientific stories being reported misleadingly in the popular press, as this top notch slapdown on the NHS Choices website makes clear – calling it “shameless clickbaiting” based on one (one!) case, which was seen in Australia.
NHS Choices says, excellently: “Many news sources covered this story. We suspect that this was because it gave them an excuse to carry photos of skinny-jean-wearing celebrities such as the Duchess of Cambridge. Call us cynical, but we doubt a case report involving anoraks or thermal underwear would generate the same level of coverage.”
Still, it’s not the first time that fashion has been held accountable for health hazards. I’ve previously looked at the mind-boggling mid-Victorian trend of walking with your back bent forward, known as the “Grecian Bend”. And today I’m going to look at the hullabaloo around the hobble skirt. The hobble skirt was a widely-ridiculed, yet very popular, fashion of the Edwardian, pre-First World War years – and really the War was pretty much responsible for ending the trend. It consisted of a long skirt, tied or narrowed tightly at some point from the knee down, and which resulted in the wearer having to “hobble” along while wearing it. I love the origin of this fashion – it is likely to have resulted from the latest technological development, the aeroplane. Designer Paul Poiret is credited for its invention, but he was probably influenced by Mrs. Hart O. Berg, who took a flight with Wilbur Wright in 1908, becoming the first American woman to fly as a passenger in a plane. In order to prevent her skirt billowing up in the air she tied a rope around it, which she kept on as she rather elegantly walked away afterwards.
Mrs Hart O. Berg and Wilbur Wright, 1908
A New Jersey judge in 1910 tried to define what the hobble skirt was, exactly. He called it “a pair of trousers with one leg”. This was an aside in a riotous-sounding trial of a schoolboy, charged with “smashing the straw hat of an elderly gentleman.” The defence for his actions was that “the season for straw hats had closed and summer headgear should not be worn in October.” To which the judge remarked that “public opinion might mould fashion, but not to the extent of employing violence. Public opinion might prescribe a hobble skirt for men, and then I suppose we should have to wear it. The hobble skirt would certainly look better on men than on women. It really is a pair of trousers with one leg.”
Hartlepool Mail, 18th October 1910
It caught on. It became the big new thing with women, seemingly confusing men in the process. In order to deal with this strange new fashion, widespread dismissal and scaremongering was the order of the day. Illinois and Texas even considered banning the hobble skirt in 1911, along with the “harem” skirt, which were long bloomers worn underneath.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 27th March 1911
There were pros and cons to the hobble. On the downside, the restricted movement could cause accidents. This article rather prematurely declares the hobble skirt dead in 1910, due to a series of accidents on the part of the wearers:
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 25th October 1910
And, in fact, trying to get over a stile in a hobble skirt apparently resulted in the sad death of Mrs Ethel Lindley in 1912. She slipped, broke her ankle and with the bone protruding through the skin, she still managed to walk ten yards towards a farm, but sadly she died shortly afterwards from septic poisoning and shock.
Hull Daily Mail, 22nd February 1912
The implications of the fashion included the fact that less fabric was used in its manufacture, and there was a “crisis of yardage” – the earlier fashions involved dresses made from 14 to 19 yards of silk, whereas the new styles only took between 4 and 7 yards, with underskirts becoming almost obsolete and demand for petticoats much reduced.
Aberdeen Journal, 30th August 1912
The fall in the demand for underskirts also had this result – 1200 clothes factory girls in Northampton went on strike in 1911 as their sewing services were not so much needed and they were given other work, which they said did not allow them to earn a living wage.
Dundee Courier, 10th October 1911
Even the Pope got involved – the hobble skirt and cleavage-revealing dresses were condemned as “scandalous and corrupting”.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 9th August 1911
But, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. “Medical men approve of women wearing tight skirts” says this headline, rather cheekily. The Chicago Medical Society decided they were “hygienic, artistic and comfortable, and that they correct bad walking.” Dr Arthur Reynolds explained that “American women think it stylish and pretty to turn their feet out at right angles while walking,” which was hard to do in a hobble skirt, and sounds painful and much more ridiculous than the tight skirt. Full skirts were also liable to become “germ-laden”.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 30th May 1913
Straight out of Monty Python, a joke about a hobble skirt “almost caused the death” of a Connecticut Judge in 1910. He saw his daughter wearing one and wisecracked that “a woman in a hobble is like a giraffe in a barrel.” He found his joke so funny that he couldn’t stop laughing, which developed into a ten-day bout of violent hiccups that apparently were life-threatening until “specialists…succeeded in reducing them to infrequent periods”. Lots of “self-appointed hiccough experts” tried to ease the judge’s suffering. I particularly like the bizarre advice of “sleeping on the bedroom door with the feet on the window sill.”
Hull Daily Mail, 29th October 1910
And “hobble skirt races” were held as a novelty instead of sack races:
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 7th September 1910
The reasons for its demise are discussed in this look back at the hobble skirt from the viewpoint of 1940. A suggestion had been made that fashion should be “standardised” for the duration of the Second World War, and this article reflects that had this been the case with the First World War, women might have remained wearing their hobble skirts much longer. As it was, war work meant that women’s fashions had to be practical above everything else – “Wider skirts, shorter skirts and shorter hair all came about through women’s need for greater freedom.” This was probably the biggest ever change to women’s position in society – “Women had become workers: they continued to work in the years which followed. If fashion had not been permitted to keep pace they would have had to shuffle instead of stride.”
Do you do anything deliberately that annoys you, for fun? I’m not sure why exactly, but getting aerated about some bugbear of yours, in a safe kind of way, is quite cathartic in the same way that crying can be.
It’s why I read the Daily Mail’s Sidebar of Shame and it’s why my husband watches “The Big Question” on a Sunday. We would be disappointed if suddenly either one was populated with reasonable points of view that coincided with our own.
And, being completely honest, it’s why I initially started researching old marital advice columns for an intermittent series I will be doing on the blog, and which started with this post. I was heartened to see that much of the advice was actually quite wise and even applicable now, sometimes with a bit of tweaking. But, yes, I was irrationally disappointed that huge swathes of outrageous archive sexism weren’t as widespread as I expected.
Apart from this one. It’s from the Isle of Man Times in 1895, and, you know, nothing against the Isle of Man and everything, but….
I’m a feminist. I would be a card-carrying one if that was possible and I don’t really understand why any woman wouldn’t identify as one, although I know some that don’t. It’s all about being treated equally to men, socially and economically, and I’m not sure why anybody wouldn’t want that for themselves. So this article is the Euro Millions jackpot for outraged feminism. I love it, while being sincerely glad I never met the author.
Although I rather suspect there’s more than a few individuals who might agree with its sentiments even today – just witness the experiences of various well-known women on Twitter these days. It’s so outrageous – “He’ll probably think you an idiot; but that’s inevitable anyway,” – that I couldn’t work out if it was actually serious. But the author anticipates this – “don’t think this is a Joak,” he tells us. I still can’t decide whether it really is, though. I suspect not – this was a topical issue, after all, and attitudes like this were no doubt why The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was founded two years later, in 1897.
A final note – I would rather like to see my husband’s face if I’d made some delicious hash for dinner, only to eat it myself and give him his own dinner of green turtle instead.
Isle of Man Times, 8th October 1895
Advice to Wives
Don’t argue with your husband: do whatever he tells you and obey all his orders.
Don’t worry him for money, and don’t expect a new dress oftener than he offers to buy you one.
Don’t sit up till he comes home from the club; better be in bed, and pretend to be asleep. If you must be awake, seem to be glad that he came home so early. He’ll probably think you an idiot; but that’s inevitable anyway.
Don’t grumble at him because he takes no notice of baby; men weren’t built to take notice of baby.
Don’t mope and cry because you are ill, and don’t get any fun; the man goes out to get all the fun, and your laugh comes in when he gets home again and tells you about – some of it. As for being ill, women should never be ill.
Don’t be mad because he smokes in bed, and goes into the best room with his dirty boots: your’s is the only house in which he can do these things, and you mustn’t be disagreeable.
Don’t talk to him of his mother-in-law; he’ll like it better if you talk to him of yours.
Don’t give him hash for dinner, eat the hash yourself and get him green turtle and chicken.
Don’t answer back, don’t spend money on yourself, don’t expect him to push the perambulator, don’t expect him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, don’t do anything he doesn’t want you to do. Then if you’re not a happy woman, your husband will at least be comfortable, and his friends will all be mad with envy.
And don’t think this is a Joak. It isn’t; it’s gospel, and the only way to have a happy home.
