Lots of things about this story rubbed me the wrong way, too. It makes me wonder what we’ll think 50 years from not looking back at 2013…

This is another case where we see the difference a couple of generations can make. I’m with you — if anybody did anything like this to me today, I’d be outraged by the manipulation and the scheming and all the rest.

But Olive W. Burt is a favorite author, and she’s a good storyteller, by the standards of the fiction in the Magazine. She writes this as if she expects her readers to find it funny, rather than offensive — and based on some other stories that involve similar manipulation of husband or wife, I have little doubt that readers in 1951 *did* find it funny. Just think of all the “I Love Lucy” reruns you’ve seen. Many are based on Lucy and Ricky tricking each other rather than sitting down and working out their problems like 21st century adults. Doesn’t this story fit that same pattern?

Stories like this are a genre that we don’t especially enjoy any more. But I read them imagining my grandmother and her enjoyment of the story. It’s one way I enter her world, and recognize that she lived in a world that was very different from mine, despite similarities in so many other ways.

But I agree with you in an objective sense — ain’t nobody better try anything like this on me!

Talk about treating women like infants who must be tricked into doing the “right thing” to spoil husband and child, and completely overlook any of her own dreams.

Sheesh! This is one I would have burned!