Short BBC interview with an English Tradwife

I agree with you on that and I occasionally screamed at my mother, when I was an angry teenager, that I couldn't see what was so great about feminism if it meant working full time and still doing all the housework. If it means the choice to do one or the other or share both then OK.

I can remember the 1950s well as a young boy to teenager. I was fortunate to come from a prosperous professional family with a beautiful house. It wasn't socially acceptable for many women of our social circle to work, only those with professional qualifications ie nurses, teachers and the occasional graduate (due to the war, and the thirties depression very few women went to further education).
My mother spent most of her day working in half an acre of garden which she made absolutely beautiful. Meals were always on the table at fixed times, she baked a lot and the house was spotless. She took the dog for long walks.
She confided to me that she was often bored to tears and wished she could work. She certainly didn't play the little woman to my Dad, and they often had disagreements. It must be said that my Dad usually got his way by just going to work and not doing what she wanted.
At uni for a short time I lived in digs with a couple and the wife never disagreed with her husband.
I told her once that my mother would never put up with it but she smiled gently and said that was the way she had been used to all her life and she knew how to get her own way without him realising.
As to spanking, I rather doubt there was much formal, but there certainly was physical force or the threat of it in a few relationships.
They were very different times and no useful comparisons could be made.
of course I had a privileged childhood and it was the norm for many women in lower income families to have to work. My wife had a very different childhood .

Whilst Hollywood, fiction novels and the media operate in a world of fantasy, it is also true that you can glean a lot from these sources on the social norms of the era they are produced in, because whilst it is fiction, it also has to be credible fiction in order to sell.

The fact that pre60s there was so much spanking of grown women portrayed, from Superman comics to Hollywood social dramas tells you that it was socially acceptable and a common practice.

Wasn't it that they couldn't show sex so wanted a titillating alternative and that society liked to pretend that domestic violence wasn't as common as it was (and still is) so portrayed it as something cute and acceptable?

There are lots of films about aliens and Father Christmas. It doesn't mean they're real.

KatiePie

I don't think so Katie. Sexual titillation in movies doesn't have to be raunchy naked bedroom romps, which often are not titillating at all. Many of the pre60s film dance routines and costumes are far more erotic than Last Tango in Paris. The 60s largely abandoned censorship and that was reflected in the movies of that era also.

That book I recommend to you explains it well and it is only a couple of dollars on Abesbooks. Some great pics in it too.

Skin to skin: eroticism in dress
Prudence GLYNNISBN 10: 0043910068 / ISBN 13: 9780043910061
Published by Allen & Unwin

I think a better comparison is the smoking and drink-driving displayed in the old movies. Even the racial interaction depicted conveys the social norms of the era.

Though I doubt wife spanking was practiced in a majority of homes across the world in the 50's, I'm certain it happened enough that comics and movies featured it. It would have not been funny if everyone did it, or if no-one did it.

I read at least a dozen articles and book references where husbands and boyfriends returning from WWII threatened or actually spanked their loved ones upon their return. Military magazines expressed as much.
I doubt they all forgot about that ten years later. Especially with the economy in shambles in the late 50's.

I know that in Ohio, a woman was a pseudo-child, under supervision of her husband until the early 60's. If you are legally his child, what would you expect an angry husband to do to get you to "behave"?

I grew up in a home where "To the moon, Alice" was a real threat I witnessed many times and I wish wife spanking had been practiced. My poor mother never knew when to drop things and she baited my tired father until he snapped and hit her. At that moment, she won the fight because she proved what a pos my father was and she cried herself to sleep happy that she won.

Likewise, I have read of progressive neighborhood parties in the 50's where wife sharing led to wife spanking by another's spouse. These were the precursors to actual wife-swapping, and only the upper white collar types took place in it. I know for a fact my parents went to such parties as I heard the arguments after they happened. My mom was super jealous. A wife swap situation would have never worked well for her, even for a spanking.

So, yes, wife spanking did exist. It was probably mostly for fun or the sexual adventurer. Sadly, wife abuse abounded. As women found their voice, jobs, and an expanding role in the workplace I believe men could not handle the immediate loss of "respect" they had forgotten how to earn, and expected without question. Especially those young men who came back from war heroes and their working wives didn't listen to a thing they said. Heck, they came home heroes only nobody really cared. Sadly, most immature men, who will never earn respect, still expect it and use force to get it. Sick, sad, and really off-topic. I'm sorry!