Whilst I realise that the serious study of history requires us to put aside personal judgement, I found this extremely difficult to do, especially when confronted with some of the stories of life at that time. I stumbled across this in Waterstones a few months ago and couldn’t resist the inviting front cover and, being partial to a dose of social history, its promise of “The story of women in the 1950s”. Living in Sussex, Virginia became increasingly involved with the Trust that administered Charleston, home of her grandmother the painter Vanessa Bell, in due course becoming its Deputy Chairman. Only having to worry about keeping the house moderately clean and your three kids alive on your husband’s government wage is significantly better than running a small cattle farm and not knowing if you’ll have any money to get through winter!

Reading this book and remembering with a certain amount of nostalgia how it was then, I also thanked my lucky stars I had enlightened parents who took it for granted that I would have a career and not just a job and that even though I would probably marry I would always be able to support myself financially. Her highest priority and aim in life is living for Christ, which shapes how she thinks and conducts herself in every arena of life: work, relationships, church, and free time. She hated aprons, never wore hats except to funerals and weddings and never wore gloves unless it was cold outside. This traditional view of women was similarly shared in Chinese society throughout the early 1900s, and on numerous occasions was criticized by Chinese academics such as Lu Xun and Zhu Ziqing. Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes focuses on the lives of women in the UK from both working-class and privileged backgrounds during the 1950s.In Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes Virginia Nicholson reconstructs the real 1950s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. Apparently, it is natural for women to be conditioned to accept stereotypical gender roles but men have no such excuse. Intellectually, I know that women have made a huge amount of progress since the 1950s, but the interviews and case studies in this book really bring it home. She is marked by a heavenly peace, which can comfort and encourage her husband in uncertain or trying times.

Other than that, handling conflicts with empathy, planning future goals together, sharing physical affection, and maintaining a sense of humor in your relationship may also make your husband happy. As an independent minded woman with feminist tendencies, I was shocked by some of the restrictions society imposed on women at that time. From the late 1890s to the end of World War II, the phrase became increasingly prevalent in mass media and higher levels of public and private girl's schools. In 1951 British women helped to throw out the government that had brought them the Welfare State, and elect one that would deliver full employment and a consumer boom.A wife who listens to good teaching and wise counsel will be better equipped to love her husband in various seasons: in times of triumph and tragedy, when he is easy to love and when he is difficult, before and after having children, and more. It paves the way for mutual respect, where both partners value each other’s opinions and collaborate on major choices. Framing the stories is an implicit argument that recent history is a progress out of falsity, towards something better. Their clothes are always correct for the occasion, summing up ‘elegance imparted by a deceptive simplicity. I loved the aspirations of so many of the women some achieving their dreams and fighting the system whilst others slipped into a more traditional way of life.

Also, a good wife understands neither partner can be perfect, so she does not struggle to mold herself or her partner into a perfect model. Having recently watched the excellent BBC dramatisation “Life in Squares” about the lives of the Bloomsbury Group, I had gained a great insight into Ms Nicholson’s literary heritage and so had high hopes for her book. As [she] explains in her introduction, much of the raw material for her book derives from interviews, so the challenge was to weave a readable narrative from a wide variety of experiences and disparate backgrounds. A survey on ‘Wives who went to College’ produced angry articles about how taxpayers’ money was being squandered on teaching women irrelevant disciplines. It was introduced to elementary schools’ curriculum when the 1911 revision of the ethics textbooks came out.In Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, Virginia Nicholson tells the story of women in the 1950s: a time before the Pill, when divorce spelled scandal and two-piece swimsuits caused mass alarm.

Many teachers and parents had narrow expectations for girls whose destiny was to be marriage, a home and a family, with work just an interim measure between leaving school and walking down the aisle, rather than a career.What she has created, gathering together dozens of different personal accounts from the decade, is an important and humane book of female social history. Just as the husband is to love his wife as his own flesh and to his own good, the wife submits to her husband for her own benefit. Nicholson, the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, has written acclaimed books saluting the women of both world wars.