Some women have the best husbands. Others make the best of the husbands they have.

Sometimes, a wife must do what her husband cannot.

There are enough women prepared to boast of having got
a man in a million to persuade other women that their failure to find
a man rich enough, handsome enough, skilled enough as a lover,
considerate enough, is a reflection of their inferior deserts or powers
of attraction. More than half the housewives in this country work
outside the home as well as inside it because their husbands do not
earn enough money to support them and their children at a decent
living standard. Still more know that their husbands are paunchy,
short, unathletic, and snore or smell or leave their clothes lying
around. A very high proportion do not find bliss in the conjugal
embrace and most complain that their husbands forget the little
things that count. And yet the myth is not invalidated as a myth

Many a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room.

It’s worth pointing out that while studies show that women do more housework than their male partners, this work goes largely unobserved by men, half of whom statistically perceive themselves as doing equal work, while only 3 percent of women agree. Add in the fact that husbands add an additional seven hours of labor to a home — labor done by their wives — and it’s a bleak picture of domestic partnership.

We are not much in sympathy with the typical hustling American business man, and we have often felt compunction for him, seeing him nervous and harassed, sleeplessly, anxiously hunting dollars, and all but overshadowed by his over-dressed, extravagant and idle wife, who sometimes insists that her spiritual development necessitates that she shall have no children. Such husbands and wives are also found in this country; they are a growing produce of the upper reaches of the capitalist system. Yet such wives imagine that they are upholding women’s emancipation.

Housewives more than any other race deserve well-furnished minds. They have to live in them such a lot of the time. ... We who belong to that profession hold the fate of the world in our hands.

I've repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors, we make pictures — and that's about all we have in common. Maybe that's enough. Wives shouldn't feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighbourhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends — and not impose one upon the other.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

Handsome husbands often make a wife's heart ache.

When men did most of the work women worked to make home a site of comfort and relaxation for males. Home was relaxing to women only when men and children were not present. When women in the home spend all their time attending to the needs of others, home is a workplace for her, not a site of relaxation, comfort, and pleasure.

We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and want to belong exclusively in the home.

It happens in every marriage. My husband, whom I adored, wanted me to be more like how he wanted me to be. But I have too much of an independent personality. I’d be off painting and he wanted me to be more of a housewife…In Hollywood, they think they want you, but really they want what they want you to be.

As far as women are concerned, I am old-fashioned enough to like the idea of a woman's managing the household. This is an important activity. A woman does not have to be a bank vice-president to find happiness. I should think routine work like sitting at a desk writing letters, making reports, or punching data into computers would be much less interesting and satisfying than running a home.