But if the 1950s and 60s taught us anything it is that women who lived their lives in that way seldom managed to survive without considerable problems as they grew older
You really do talk utter rubbish, Trisher.
I would imagine most of us had mothers who were 1950s housewives and I cannot see why it has to be used as a pejorative term.
Those 1950 housewives spent at least half of the 1940s doing war work, my mother and my mother in law certainly did, and the second half battling with austerity; shortages, rationing, lack of housing, re-building, making do.
In the 1950s there were few labour-saving devices, such as fridges, washing machines, telephones, instant food, central heating; running a home then was hard work but it doesn't mean these women did it because they were subservient to their husbands.