Short BBC interview with an English Tradwife

Very interesting and balanced interview.

My wife preferred domestic life to the cut and thrust of office politics when she held down a senior position some years ago, which is why she retired early.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwT-zYo4-OM

I wonder if the lady in the interview gets spanked like in the 50s?

As with everything else, I think she's cherry-picking. It's far from how a real housewife lived like in the 50s. But most of all I wonder how they can make it one one income. He must be making tons of money. Damn; I wish my wife brought home so much cash that I could stay at home...

It would have made an awesome interview though (which never would have been aired).

"And here's the hairbrush with which my husband blisters my bottom when he thinks that dinner isn't up to standards, or if I haven't finished ironing on time."

"Is that why you're standing up?"

"Yes. The beer wasn't cold enough yesterday when he wanted to watch the game on the telly. I'm still pretty sore back there, but such is the life of a housewife and it's my choice."

Brosse6
I think you might have an over romanticised idea of the 50s.

I remember the 50s Katie and in fact my wife and I often discuss the hardships back then as well as the happier parts.

All retro activity is cherry picking to some degree because life around you has moved on, for the better and the worst. Those people who enjoy re-enacting famous battles in costume are just enjoying themselves without the hard realities of life and warfare back then.

All fashions, fads and social changes eventually run out of road and society goes back to basics again. We are seeing that now regarding the direction Western society has taken since the Swinging Sixties. The cycle of history shows societies move from hedonism/decadence to austerity/piety on a regular basis, just as hemlines go up and down with the fashion.

Brosse6, I meant the assumption that housewives in the 50s were spanked. I do not believe that it was everyone's experience or even the experience of the majority.

I often thought that I would quite like to be a housewife in that there's never been a job I've wanted to do and I've hated all the jobs I've had. Unfortunately, the bullying that exists in schools carries on into the workplace. I would generally rather stay at home than go out. I quite like ironing, though I'm not particularly keen on any other housework. And I am very much of the view that babies and young children need their mothers to be with them. I think maternity leave should be for about five years per child, if not more. One of the things I disagreed with in that clip was about the man always coming first. I think the baby should always come first.

What puts me off a life of housewifery is a husband expecting sex or having to bother beautifying myself.

I would also have strong objections to Glagla's suggestion of being spanked for the dinner not being up to standard or the beer not being cold enough. If anyone tried to do that I would tell them to fuck off. I only want to be spanked if I've chosen to be.

Yes, Katie, I absolutely agree that we tend to romanticise the 50s. Ignore the fact that in real life most people's home was not that of Ward and June Cleaver, or the folks on Father Knows Best.Not that way for people of color, or coal miners in Appalachia, or gay and lesbian people except maybe sometimes in places like Greenwich Village. And then there was McCarthyism and red baiting. And the Cold War spectre of nuclear annihilation hovering over.
Some seem to think because, among other things, corporal punishment in schools or by parents was more widely accepted things were better, more orderly and decorous.
But the times also saw rebellion against this background of repression and conformity. Rock and roll and the Beat writers movement were the benign manifestations. The term "juvenile delinquency" and youth gang wars like in West Side Story was the other side of the coin.
As for women's roles, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique came as a reaction to this view that the only normal acceptable role for women was to get married and be a housewife, or be a secretary, nurse, teacher or other "women's work" until Mr. Right came along.
Read some lesbian literature set in the 50s; I assure you will gain quite another perspective.

KatiePie

I am sure many wives were not spanked back then, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest many were.

I remember in my first year at high school our history teacher telling a girl who asked if women got punished for petty crimes like the men did, him replying that they were put over the husband's knee and spanked. She blushed and we all laughed.

My mum told me that the husband across the road had spanked his wife and I saw an uncle of mine take his slipper off and threaten his wife in front of us.

There was an academic book in my university's library which quoted wives in the US claiming they were indeed spanked.

I have a strong suspicion that husbands spanking wives was never common. It may have happened in the 50s, but not frequently at all. The trope of a wife making a boneheaded, impulsive, or adolescent decision and winding up over her husband's knee getting spanked for it simply made its way into the culture; I expect this was because it fundamentally combined a sense of humor, playfulness, and a degree of sex appeal strong enough to be titillating but mild enough to be permitted on TV and in print ads.

And so we have Ricky Ricardo putting Lucy over his knee for some ridiculous shenanigans, women in print ads getting spanked for the presumably silly decision to buy inferior coffee, or for spending half a week's pay on a silly hat. Humorous, lighthearted, playful, mildly sexy but not something you couldn't let the kids see - but a I'm extremely skeptical this was the norm, or even something done by a noticeable minority of couples.

It's a myth, much like the idea that cowboys commonly spoke with Southern accents, when in reality the Southwest was really settled by Midwesterners. Colorful and appealing, so it's endured as a trope, but probably not factual.

Sorry if I'm spoiling anything. I promise not to tell anybody's kids Santa is really their parents. ;)

Blarg


I think it was a fairly common practice from the more playful lesson to show her who wears the pants, to the genuine angry husband who would never punch or kick a woman but would spank one, as he would a child. I also think there is sufficient evidence to support that.

An interesting and long article on the subject from Jezebel Mag:

https://theattic.jezebel.com/i-dont-know-whether-to-kiss-you-or-spank-you-a-half-ce-1 769140132