Ways To Get A Husband Article from 1958

I could not imagine dating during this covid-19 mess. Being married is difficult enough. Or should I say ‘different enough’. Nearly all of us are not old enough to know what it was like to date in the 50s.  It was strange too.  I’m not saying I was around to know this first hand, I wasn’t. But there was a McCall’s magazine article from the 1958 titled 129 Ways To Get A Husband that went viral recently.  I couldn’t imagine such a blatantly sexist society as the norm.  Some of the suggestions from the article on how to get a husband were ‘Get a job demonstrating fishing tackle in a sporting goods store’. ‘Don’t be afraid to associate with more attractive girls, they may have some leftovers’ ‘Stumble when you walk into a room that he’s in’.  Amazing advice. Imagine being an editor at a magazine today and having that advice suggested by your writer.  Really?

I guess if you dig deeply enough you can find a positive. This was in the article and was the only bit that wasn’t dripping with sexism or suggesting second class behavior. ‘Wear a Band-Aid. People always ask what happened’.  Hmm, wonder if that worked.  It might have, and it still might. But ‘Stand in a corner and cry softly. Chances are good that he’ll come over to find out what’s wrong’ couldn’t have been good advice even in such a totally different era.

One thing we can be thankful about when it comes to 2020, at least we have come a long way from 1958.