Check out the 1950’s guide to being a great housewife!

I kick it old school. Chances are if I’m hanging at the house wasting time, you can find me watching either old school movies or television shows. Just the other day, I noticed how wrapped up I was in a Dragnet episode on the classic radio show channel I get in my truck.

Some of these old school shows showed a different kind of life when it comes to relationships and marriages. For example, the separate single beds in the bedrooms. I always wondered if that’s what married folks really did back in the day? And even if they did, why a single bed and not a full or even a queen? Apparently, there was some truth to the movies and television programs because before we arrived in Virginia Beach, my family and I spent a week in North Carolina at my wife’s grandmothers home. From what I understood, instead of having separate beds in the rooms, they had separate bedrooms all together! Craziest thing I ever saw!

Then, I remember when I was a little kid and my dad would take my brother and me to my great grandparents’ house in Texas. I’m telling you what, my great grandmother, meemaw, would wake up before everyone else and make a feast in the mornings. Then, for lunch, she would make an amazing lunch. I’m talking baked chicken, vegetables, rolls, and some kind of dessert. The woman cooked and cleaned all day long.

I thought of my great grandmother a lot when I read the 1950’s guide to being a good housewife. Apparently, women were more like prisoners rather than a partner in a relationship. I can only imagine how hard my wife would smack me if I ever expected to be treated the way a man of the house was supposed to be treated back in 1955. To see the entire list of “traditions” click here.

One that really stood out was that a woman should never question a man if he’s late for dinner. Better yet, a wife should never question a man, even if he decides to stay out all night. What!?!? Seems like we lived on another planet back in the 1950s.