Good wife's guide
Encyclopedia
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
article rumored to have been published in the May 13, 1955 issue of Housekeeping Monthly, describing how a good wife should act, containing material that reflects a very different role assignment from contemporary American society
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
. The text and supposed scan of the article have been widely circulated via email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
. Lack of confirming evidence has cast significant doubt on its origins.
Authenticity
Investigations propose that the guide may be a hoaxHoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
. According to snopes.com, the wording "The Advertising Archives
The Advertising Archives
The Advertising Archives is a picture library and museum with an archive of one million British and American press ads, TV stills, magazine covers, catalogues, greetings cards, posters, illustrations and cultural ephemera dating from 1850 to the present day...
" located on the right side of the image suggests a fraud, since the Archives itself was not started until 1990. Additionally, the image used is claimed to be from a 1957 cover of John Bull
John Bull (magazine)
John Bull Magazine was a weekly periodical established in the City, London EC4, by Theodore Hook in 1820.-Publication dates:It was a popular periodical that continued in production through 1824 and at least until 1957...
magazine. The "Good Wife" version of this image appears to be cropped just below where the textbox containing the words "WOMAN AT THE WHEEL" appeared on the John Bull cover image. Finally, when viewed with increased contrast, square boxes are seen around all the listed points. This would only be made if created digitally and then selectively copied into the seen "magazine" format. One source claims that the text of this article has been circulating since at least the 1980s via fax
Fax
Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
. Others have claimed that the article is real. However there was no magazine called Housekeeping Monthly, also the fact that the article mentions "make him a fire" questions its authenticity, even in 1950 many houses didnt have open fires.
