Kathy, I have no right whatsoever to criticize a woman for choosing to be a housewife. You are so right, there are so many demands made on women these days, and if a woman chooses to concentrate on being a stay-at-home mom instead of trying to combine motherhood a and job, no one has any right to ciritcize her for that. My point was always that after twenty-plus years of marriage Anne of Green Gables was "out of the story", and that is something I hate. There is no way that a woman should be treated as so uninteresting that she can be left out of the story!
A relatively famous Swedish book series tells the story of a few Swedish women who belonged to the Swedish nobility in the early twentieth century. The books insist that these women truly had almost nothing to do. They didn't do any housework, not even any planning of the housework, and there were so many things they weren't allowed to do, because the activities were unsuitable, or beneath them, or immoral, or something. Two of these women had nervous breakdowns. But I quite agree that they belonged to another social stratum than Anne of Green Gables, and there really weren't many other women who were in their situation.
On the other hand, I have also read another book about some people who knew absolutely nothing about how to take care of a home. The book was written by Darwin's granddaughter, and it is not the least bit darwinistic - the woman doesn't even mention her grandfather's world-shaking new theory - but instead it is delightfully full of a lovely sense of humour. The woman tells, very lovingly, a story about her many eccentric relatives. She says that because they had so many servants, they were absolutely helpless if they were left alone. They could do nothing practical on their own. On the other hand, they all seemed content and happy.
Ann
