What Nicholson did do well was finding a collection of incredibly compelling (white-- we finally meet a woman of color like, ten pages before the end, which is really something in a 460-page book) women with a wide variety of experiences.

Their clothes are always correct for the occasion, summing up ‘elegance imparted by a deceptive simplicity. During the late 1800s, women in East Asian society were expected to master domestic skills such as sewing and cooking, and to develop the moral and intellectual skills to raise strong, intelligent sons for the sake of the nation. She includes a wide range of women from all parts of society but the common theme is how constraining life was for so many of them. The surprising part of this intimate and personal story is not the alpha male behaviour nor even the complete subservience to an uncompromising husband which cost Liz her youthful ambition to be a journalist, but her own conclusion that her life had, she believed, thanks to David, been a ‘charmed’ one.In Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, Nicholson presents the lives of women in the 1950s as a foreign country.

Sandwiched between the privations and sacrifices of the 1940s and the affluent excesses of the ‘swinging sixties’, the fifties have long been regarded as a dull decade, when Britain was struggling to rebuild a devastated and shabby country and ‘face the future’, in the words of the Labour Party’s 1945 election slogan. Also, bizarrely, she throws in an off-handed comment about how the women of the WI were “ starting to look beyond poultry-keeping and meal preparation. Was so interesting and covered an amazing range of topics, real peoples lives and there was never a dull moment. She makes it clear that while some women seemed happy with their marriages and their lives, there were plenty of others who were not. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her books include the acclaimed social histories Among the Bohemians, Singled Out, Millions Like Us, and Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes.One of the most interesting sections in this book is on education: since "society had determined that woman's place was in the home," and that "getting your man" was mattered most, a great deal of emphasis in a young woman's education went into preparing them in skills appropriate to their married futures.

Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes also reveals a decade full of women's angst and emotional turmoil from the highest echelons of British society on down the ladder.As for happiness: Liz on her Pevensey farm got her pearls back and believed her marriage had been “charmed”; her husband told her eventually that “he did not know what he would have done without her”, and she said she had “a completely fulfilling life”. A long, more fleshed-out look at this book can be found at my online reading journal here -- otherwise, carry on. In the post-war world, there was little – except a residual belief in her own incapacity – to stop a young woman from training to become an architect, a biologist, or a lawyer. While the Proverbs 31 woman is intelligent and strong, she is notably distinct from the “independent woman” our culture praises.

And while Nicholson pays particular attention to women of the working class, we don’t hear much from the upper middle class – the women who followed their fathers and brothers into professions, becoming doctors and lawyers. The accompanying text guides us round a promised land of batch-baking and the latest in home technology, brightly-hued plastics and man-made fibres that simplify life and save time.The author’s use of women’s experiences brings the decade vividly to life and if I have learnt anything from it, it is that I am grateful for the choices and freedoms that I have as a woman today. I did think that the tone of this book was sometimes patronising - 'poor dears, allowing their lives to be dictated by others' expectations' - when most people experience this regardless of gender.