Wife Culture

A man tells of his own “delinquencies” when dealing with his wife and how he has “reformed."

A farmer in Farm and Ranch, on the subject of wife culture, tells of his own delinquencies and how he was reformed. Of the wife he says:
“She needs some kindly notice and appreciation from the boss and help in her household duties and I used to take pleasure in doing that! but from some cause have been rather careless of late years, but since reading the Household have gone back to my old self; and did not have to take Uncle Snort’s remedy, either. I simply got up early one morning and made a good fire in the stove, put on a kettle of water, brushed around and brought in a couple of pails of water, brushed around and brought in a couple of pails of water, and went to the garden. Of course, I was expecting her to notice me, but not so. The following morning I did the same thing, but found a large notch cut in the well curb when I went for the water. I immediately got after the small boy, but he declared his innocence and said his mamma did it. I called on her for an explanation, and she said it was to remind me of my kindness to her and the fact that they were the only two buckets of water I had drawn in two years, and I notice that ugly gash every morning but I’m still keeping up the same old way.”

“Wife Culture,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed March 21, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1045.