# The infamous 1950's "Good Wife's Guide" Why does Snopes list this as "undetermined"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2008, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224 "2008-03-05T19:38:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/1 "2008-03-05T19:38:40Z")
[I read Snopes take on it](http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.asp) and you almost get the vibe she wants to believe it’s true. Some of the stuff is plausible, but the last “A good wife always knows her place” was so ham handed it just put it over the top for me into “manufactured item” territory. She as much as admits it’s a blatantly manufactured list and a fake magazine article. Her rationale for pegging it with “undetermined” because it reflects some social mores of the time is weak at best. ---
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/2 "2008-03-05T19:54:33Z")
[QUOTE=astro] [I read Snopes take on it](http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.asp) and you almost get the vibe she wants to believe it’s true. Some of the stuff is plausible, but the last “A good wife always knows her place” was so ham handed it just put it over the top for me into “manufactured item” territory. She as much as admits it’s a blatantly manufactured list and a fake magazine article. Her rationale for pegging it with “undetermined” because it reflects some social mores of the time is weak at best. [/QUOTE] Perhaps because at least parts of it\* were\* published (no cite, because most of mygrandmothers old books are in boxes & I’m not dragging 'em out to look up exact quote, title, publisher and date), but not in one single publication. They were in “household hints, recipes & general deportment for women” type publications. One or two with real binding, mostly just small paperback/ pamphlet published by Ladies service groups (I think that’s what they’re called – Junior League, Rebeccas, DAR, Eastern Star type clubs) style, ranging from the mid-1920’s to the mid-to late 1950’s. Granny was a joiner, and a bit of a pack-rat. One of my favorites, which I call “Household Horrors” also has an enchilada recipe that begins “Obtain tortillas from a mexican.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/3 "2008-03-05T20:25:29Z")
[QUOTE=MadPansy64] Perhaps because at least parts of it\* were\* published (no cite, because most of my grandmother’s old books are in boxes & I’m not dragging 'em out to look up exact quote, title, publisher and date), but not in one single publication. They were in “household hints, recipes & general deportment for women” type publications. One or two with real binding, mostly just small paperback/ pamphlet published by Ladies service groups (I think that’s what they’re called – Junior League, Rebecca’s, DAR, Eastern Star type clubs) style, ranging from the mid-1920’s to the mid-to late 1950’s. Granny was a joiner, and a bit of a pack-rat. One of my favorites, which I call “Household Horrors” also has an enchilada recipe that begins “Obtain tortillas from a Mexican.” :smack: [/QUOTE] …then some beef from a gaucho, and some corn meal from an Indian. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/4 "2008-03-05T20:59:35Z")
[QUOTE=astro] She as much as admits it’s a blatantly manufactured list… [/QUOTE] Where exactly does it say that? It seems to me the only way to definitively tag it as “false” would be to show that the list _originally_ appeared as a joke or fiction, as was done for the [“bullet pregnancy”](http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/bullet.asp) myth. Until then, there always remains a possibility that it is a genuine article from a 1950s book. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/5 "2008-03-05T21:10:19Z")
That’s exactly how my mother describes her lifestyle in the mid-sixties. She said it drove her nuts and she went out and got a job instead. She said my borother and I (at 4 & 2 y/o) would automatically start cleaning away our toys as soom as she started cooking dinner. Dad, by the way, gave her his full support when she got a job, and helped out with the housework, which was virtually unheard of at the time. I’ve got a series of ‘Children of the World’ books from the same era and its lists of boys vs girls activities would back up the Snopes list with sickening accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/6 "2008-03-05T21:26:37Z")
As someone who’s had to come home to a chaotic mess–house in complete disarray, kids running rampant and wife bitching to me about one thing and another and another and another before I have my other foot in the door, I can honestly say that I was in absolutely no mood to help out or dig deep for any kind of patience what so ever. Had I been afforded even 5 minutes time to get out of the car, shake off the previous 9-10 hours of tedium and acclimate myself into the role of “Family Guy” I would have made a much better husband and father. Whether or not this is an oppressive text or simply a list of good ideas depends entirely on how you read it. C’mon, haven’t any of you ever wanted to make someone feel special? I know at one time I did, and I gladly did what I could to make my SO’s transition from work to home as inviting as possible including most of the items in the article. Was I her doting slave the whole evening? Hell no, but it only takes 5 minutes to make someone feel special for the rest of the evening. IF this laundry list is indeed from an actual publication, I would like to know the context. Take out some of the “woman’s place” lingo and I think this can be boiled down to a list of considerate actions ANY mate should consider if they want to keep the support of someone who’s just having to shift gears. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/7 "2008-03-05T21:43:49Z")
[QUOTE=astro] She as much as admits it’s a blatantly manufactured list and a fake magazine article. Her rationale for pegging it with “undetermined” because it reflects some social mores of the time is weak at best. [/QUOTE] Who’s the ‘she’ in this sentence? ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/8 "2008-03-05T21:51:06Z")
Undetermined I guess because even though the mock-up is fake, the info very well could have come from a book back then, just that no one has produced the book yet. Snopes is odd like that- baseball pitcher Dock Ellis says he pitched his no hitter while high on LSD, so they list it as true without other proof, this from a guy known to be wacky. Would they list similar UFO sightings as true without support? ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/9 "2008-03-05T21:53:41Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Take out some of the “woman’s place” lingo and I think this can be boiled down to a list of considerate actions ANY mate should consider if they want to keep the support of someone who’s just having to shift gears. [/QUOTE] I think you have a really interesting take on this. My first impression (probably because I’m female) was “Hey! That’s sexist!” But you do have a point. When my husband gets home before I do with our son, the first thing he usually wants to do is hand him over to me, while the first thing on my mind is “Dammit, can’t I at least take off my coat and spend some quiet time with you both before I have to cook dinner, do bathtime, put our son to bed, clean the house, pay some bills, etc.?!?” I still disagree with the principles that are the behind its creation, if indeed it is a real piece from an actual publication, but I do agree that general courtesy and the desire to do nice things for each other is pretty vital to the success of a marriage. This is amplified for me after I’ve been gone all day at a high-profile, demanding job, only to be faced with an irate toddler who’s made the choice to scream like a maniac because I had the unmitigated gall to take off my shoes before carrying him around on my hip most of the evening while trying to do all the things listed above. I’m sure my husband sometimes feels the same way when I get home first (though I usually do all of the cooking, most of the cleaning and bathtimes, which is a whole different discussion). ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/10 "2008-03-05T21:56:08Z")
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya] Take out some of the “woman’s place” lingo and I think this can be boiled down to a list of considerate actions ANY mate should consider if they want to keep the support of someone who’s just having to shift gears. [/QUOTE] I kind of agree with you, but only up to a point. Beyond simple consideration, the entire premise of the thing is that the husband’s is a world of “strain and pressure,” and so he needs babying. What does that say about _her_ world? ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/11 "2008-03-05T23:32:24Z")
Actually, it’s not a big stretch of the imagination to think that this might be a condensed or abbreviated version of a real guide. Given that this article is from roughly the same era as the entire Fascinating Womanhood movement (which is still alive and well today, BTW, as well as its soulmate the Surrendered Wife movement). I also clearly a “happy marriage” guide from the late 70s that a friend and I giggled over many many years ago. It included just about every piece of advice in this guide - minus the one about knowing your place as a wife, but plus a suggestion that you greet him at the door with a martini if he’s had a particularly rough day. I dearly wish I could remember the name of that book… I could use a good chuckle right about now. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/12 "2008-03-06T00:08:05Z")
[QUOTE=Cat Fight] Who’s the ‘she’ in this sentence? [/QUOTE] Barbara Mikkelson. I think she runs the site. It is the only other board I frequent other than Fark, Onion, and SDMB. I love that place. Didn’t she, one time, say something was true that wasn’t…just to remind the readers to check their info and get to the source? Interestingly, this article bothered me too. I wanted her to say yea or no. I didn’t want this one to be undetermined, for some reason. I wonder why that is? I just wanted it to be true for some reason I can’t figure out… There used to be this bit of lore going around about the Willie Lynch letters. Apparently, some guy named Willie Lynch wrote a letter in the early 1800’s to a small town that was having trouble controlling their slaves. In the letter, he spoke of black people as horses that need to be broken, and he gave all kinds of tactics to do the breaking. A lot of black people, (and some white, I am sure) passed that letter around as truth. But I never saw a shred of real evidence that it was authentic. After pressing a good friend of mine, he directed me to a book called “Breaking the Chains of Slavery” or something like that. I found the author in the book claiming that the letter was real. I checked his footnotes, though. Source Unknown. I thought so. Fake. I understand the need of Barbara to want to acknowledge that the Housewife guide really did reflect something very real. But if it’s fake, it’s fake. Just like the Lynch letter. It may have reflected something real, but if it is fake, folks shouldn’t be going around, passing it off as real. I have never checked Snopes about the Lynch letter, now that I think of it…I haven’t even thought of the letter in years, I don’t think! I’m gonna check snopes now. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/13 "2008-03-06T00:27:06Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] . . . the entire premise of the thing is that the husband’s is a world of “strain and pressure,” and so he needs babying. What does that say about _her_ world? [/QUOTE] She’s supposed to be at home, which is presumed to be a protected environment. Yes, she’s supposed to have authority over the children (and the family gets social points for how well they obey), but she can rely on his authority to back her up when he gets home. And we won’t talk about the grief her husband would get if it looked like he didn’t have authority over her well in place. (“Well, you can see who wears the pants in THAT family.”) It was a time of Women Driver Jokes. It wasn’t unusual for a woman to have no driver’s license because they “didn’t understand mechanical things.” Although plenty of other women would roll their eyes at that. There was always tension between the Supportive Feminine Angel meme and the Resourceful Pioneering American Woman meme. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/14 "2008-03-06T00:52:39Z")
I think I’ve just discovered an earlier version of this “1999 email” which I’ll forward to Barbara over at snopes. > **[Internet Insider](https://books.google.com/books?id=LZMcyOfVILsC&q=%22clear%2Baway%2Bthe%2Bclutter%22%2Bdate:1900-1999&dq=%22clear%2Baway%2Bthe%2Bclutter%22%2Bdate:1900-1999&lr=&num=100&as_brr=0&pgis=1)** > > The Internet is currently the hottest topic in the computer book industry. This book is designed to reveal what the Internet is really all about, sharing the strangest, funniest, most interesting material from the Net in a format that's familiar and... Which is a Google Book search of “Clear away the clutter.” It’s in a book published in 1995 called _Internet Insider_. I haven’t done any more towards finding out whether this was the original source, as Google only shows a limited preview. But it might be more info than she had previously. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/15 "2008-03-06T01:28:08Z")
[QUOTE=MadPansy64] One of my favorites, which I call “Household Horrors” also has an enchilada recipe that begins “Obtain tortillas from a mexican.” :smack: [/QUOTE] To be fair, the best tortillas I’ve ever had were made by a Mexican woman in Juarez. There’s nothing like truly homemade tortillas. I think the real question is does that recipe call for corn or flour tortillas and are the enchiladas flat or rolled? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/16 "2008-03-06T01:44:27Z")
Look up the short film “A Date With Your Family” on YouTube (preferably the MST3K version). It’s much of the list in “educational movie” form. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/17 "2008-03-06T01:58:53Z")
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna] I also clearly a “happy marriage” guide from the late 70s that a friend and I giggled over many many years ago. It included just about every piece of advice in this guide - minus the one about knowing your place as a wife, but plus a suggestion that you greet him at the door with a martini if he’s had a particularly rough day. I dearly wish I could remember the name of that book… I could use a good chuckle right about now. [/QUOTE] I bet you’re remembering [The Total Woman](http://www.amazon.com/Total-Woman-Marabel-Morgan/dp/0671732110). It was a hoot even in its time, and it seems like something from another century now. Come to think of it, it actually **is** something from another century. The twentieth. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/18 "2008-03-06T02:09:03Z")
[QUOTE=MadPansy64] Perhaps because at least parts of it\* were\* published (no cite, because most of mygrandmothers old books are in boxes & I’m not dragging 'em out to look up exact quote, title, publisher and date), but not in one single publication. They were in “household hints, recipes & general deportment for women” type publications. One or two with real binding, mostly just small paperback/ pamphlet published by Ladies service groups (I think that’s what they’re called – Junior League, Rebeccas, DAR, Eastern Star type clubs) style, ranging from the mid-1920’s to the mid-to late 1950’s. Granny was a joiner, and a bit of a pack-rat. One of my favorites, which I call “Household Horrors” also has an enchilada recipe that begins “Obtain tortillas from a mexican.” :smack: [/QUOTE] If you were to dig some of those books out, I bet you could start one hell of a thread with some of the tips. “Obtain tortillas from a Mexican” Gee where in California or Nevada could we find a Mexican? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/19 "2008-03-06T02:16:59Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] Look up the short film “A Date With Your Family” on YouTube (preferably the MST3K version). It’s much of the list in “educational movie” form. [/QUOTE] Dang it. Now I’m going to spend the rest of my night watching MST3K shorts on YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224/20 "2008-03-06T03:32:51Z")
Snopes lists the claim as “undertermined” because that is the accurate response. They are not supposed to declare it a “fake” just because no one has determined the origin. That’s why Snopes has such a good reputation. I am surprised that _Fascinating Womanhood_ would have as one of its “Do’s”: “Be a Domestic Goddess.” That would have been considered rather profane at the time in some neighborhoods. I had always though that particular expression started with Roseanne. > [@](#): > > \*\* Some of the stuff is plausible, but the last “A good wife always knows her place” was so ham handed it just put it over the top for me into “manufactured item” territory. The piece _may_ be manufactured or that particular one may have been added to a legitimate list. But I promise you that that is exactly what we were told and what generally young women believed to be true of “nice girls.” I am familiar with post-War II small town Southern culture only, but I suspect it wasn’t limited just to us. “Women should know their place” became especially important when women began to decide that they belonged many places. The phrase “A woman’s place is in the home” found a good response with the T-shirts that said: **A Woman’s Place Is In the House…And in the Senate.** – Honest-to-God former six year member of the “Future Homemakers of America” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-infamous-1950s-good-wifes-guide-why-does-snopes-list-this-as-undetermined/440224.md?page=2)