"The Perfect Wife” Can Now Prove It

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 74, 28 March 1936, Page 14

"The Perfect Wife” Can Now Prove It

The “perfect wife” can now prove it. She has a diploma entitling her to the distinction, states an overseas correspondent. Hundreds of London brides are now presenting their husbands with these “perfect wife” diplomas won at training colleges since they became engaged. And hundreds of other wives, unable to sit for the examination before marriage, leave their homes three or more nights a week to study the art of holding a husband by scientific housewifery. Hundreds more, still only dreaming of a husband, take tho courses to qualify themselves should he one day come along.

Twelve leading training colleges and polytechnics in London which provide these “careers for wives” have long waiting lists for their classes. This is believed to be doe to the modern husband’s advanced ideas on what home life should be, and to the servant problem. Diplomas and certificates arp, now granted, among other subjects, for household bookkeeping, laundry work, cookery, cleaning, mending, care of furniture, choice, buying and storing of food, home nursing; house or flat selection; child welfare, dietetics and physiology. Miss Bowncs, domestic science principal of the Kegent Street Polytechnic said this week: “Girls are realising it is one thing to get a husband and another to keep him. Some girls leave work a year before marriage in order to take the housewives’ course.” Fees range from as low as 12s a year at Woolwich Polytechnic to 32 guineas foe a housewives’ course of two terms at the National Society’s Training College, West Hampstead. An official at Chelsea Polytechnic said: “We have many society and titled women taking the lesson side by side with their maids. This is a result of the servant shortage. The housewives find they have to do somo of tho work themselves, and properly train girls they can get.”