When I was growing up, magazines like Ladies Home Journal helped put the brisket on the table. My mother wrote for womens magazines, regularly interrupting her work to prepare the dessert of the day or sew Halloween costumes, yet she still made more than my father did teaching university English. So of course we had piles of womens magazines around the house, jumbled together with Saturday Review and The New Yorker. For Mother, those magazines were market research--with the bonus of casserole recipes. Her loyal clients included Ladies Home Journal, and through her contacts there I sold a short story to LHJ at age 15. Although I dont recall her writing for the magazines trademarked feature, Can This Marriage Be Saved?, I wish I could share this trenchant piece with her. Shed recognize the her own blighting, self-defeating efforts to save her marriage, no matter what. For the wives in CTMBS, marriage was a Procrustean bed--and rightly so, according to the experts who dictated the slant. I didnt expect to find this piece dismaying. After all, I was there. I knew. But I wasnt married; I didnt feel obliged to cater to a husband who was essentially a child in the house--quite possibly a violent bully. So many women did. And its so easy to forget. aeon.co/magazine/psychology/the-warped-world-of-1950s-marriage-counselling/
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 22:11:41 +0000
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