| Not sure I agree. There were a couple of books I picked up as presents, they were reprints of a book ~100 years old, called something like 'advice for husbands' and 'advice for wives', something like that. They were ~2/3rds the same advice, and of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and frankly most if it was surprisingly sensible and relevant today (some still has the assumption that the man is in the superior position, and some is a bit painful, but perhaps not as much as you'd think). OK, found it https://raffertysrules.blog/2011/04/18/donts-for-husbands-do... Extract, make of it what you will: Advice for Wives Don’t interpret too literally the ‘obey’ of the Marriage Service. Your husband has no right to control your individuality. Don’t let your husband feel that you are a ‘dear little woman’, but no good intellectually. If you find yourself getting stale, wake up your brain. Don’t keep your sweetest smiles and your best manners for outsiders; let your husband come first. Don’t grumble because his idea of work differs from yours. If he works hard at anything, let him do it his own way, and be satisfied. Don’t refuse to see your husband’s jokes. They may be pretty poor ones, but it won’t hurt you to smile at them. Don’t allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is ‘only’ your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhors the sight of curling pins as much as other men do. He is a man after all, and if his wife does not take the trouble to charm him, there are plenty of other women who will. [Ouch!] Advice for Husbands Don’t refuse to get up and investigate in the night if your wife hears an unusual noise, or fancies she smells fire or escaping gas. She will be afraid of shaming you by getting up herself, and will lie awake working herself into a fever. This may be illogical, but it’s true. Don’t be surprised, or annoyed, or disappointed, to find, after treating your wife for years as a feather-brain, that you have made her one, and that she fails to rise to the occasion when you need her help. Don’t belittle your wife before visitors. You may think it a joke to speak of her little foibles, but she will not easily forgive you. Don’t refuse your wife’s overtures when next you meet if you have unfortunately had a bit of a breeze. Remember it costs her something to make them, and if you weren’t a bit of a pig, you would save her the embarrassment by making them yourself. Don’t chide your wife in public, whatever you may feel it necessary to do in private. She will not easily forgive you for having witnesses to her discomfiture. Don’t call your wife a coward because she is afraid of a spider. Probably in a case of real danger she would prove to be quite as brave as you. |
So I am not claiming that Einstein's demands were normal 100 years ago (We can surmise that they likely were not given that Maric asked for a divorce instead). I'm not saying that we should look to their personal life as any kind of positive example. I'm only saying that I know they were working on an incredibly different set of cultural assumptions than I am. In their time, I don't know if they would have been judged by their peers as progressive or regressive. I judge them regressive, but what the heck is that worth?