Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s

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Nicholson has the same knack of seamlessly piecing gripping individual stories into a panorama of everyday life. This book is a non stop page turner through the lives of women from all rungs of society in the 1950s. As part of our premarital counseling, we each wrote a brief essay describing the “ideal husband” and “ideal wife,” seeking to be as biblical, specific, practical, and thorough as possible. Although some women overcame the obstacles and went on to higher education as well as a good job, possibly even a profession, the prevailing view throughout the 50’s was that being educated was unwomanly and that women who had succeeded were ‘misfits or probably spinsters or (whisper it) lesbians.

But it’s the emotional agonies suffered by women in the 1950s – whether Princess Margaret forbidden to marry her divorced lover, Group Captain Peter Townsend, at one end of the social scale or Florence Fell at the other, thrown out of nursing college when she became pregnant, which provide the core strength of the book. Turn the page back to the mid-twentieth century, and discover a world peopled by women with radiant smiles, clean pinafores and gleaming coiffures; a promised land of batch-baking, maraschino cherries and brightly hued plastic.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. A mature gentleman recognizes the demands of a better half – she needs to be attractive, but in addition, she needs to be calming and have an effective sense of self-control. A survey on ‘Wives who went to College’ produced angry articles about how taxpayers’ money was being squandered on teaching women irrelevant disciplines.

When the couple disagrees, a good wife will try to reach the root cause and be receptive to resolving issues amicably. They are clever cooks, who know the secret of success with yeast dough; they have wonderful ways with mince and they can set a junket. Eileen remembers a Kilkenny priest raving about the women he’d seen with “their dripping talons”, meaning their nail varnish, “and their congealed blood”, their lipstick. She embodies the contradictions of this era that Nicholson spells out so well: a new world dressed in old clothes. Rather than attempt to seize control of her own fate, she accepts what she has been given without complaint.Many were denied or persuaded out of pursuing academic careers as they were not thought the right environment for a woman. Nicholson, the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, has written acclaimed books saluting the women of both world wars. We have a whole range of women wanting to tell their stories, women as diverse as debutantes, Butlin's Red Coats, air hostesses, prostitutes and factory workers. Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages.