There isno more fruitful source of familydiscontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways.

-Beeton, Isabella Mary ne¤  e Mayson
The Book of Household Management, preface.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb upon his knees the envied kiss to share.

-Gray,Thomas
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.21^4.

Many a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room.

-Greer, Germaine
  The Female Eunuch,'Love: Security'.

I could never be a complete scholar or a complete housewife ora completewriter: Imustcombinea little of all, and thereby be imperfect in all.

-Plath, Sylvia
  Letter to her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, 25 Feb. Collected in Aurelia Schober Plath (ed) Letters Home by Sylvia Plath (1949).

Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting extravagant quean; And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Chorus. Let the toast pass, Drink to the lassö I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for a glass!

-Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
  Song.The School for Scandal, act 3, sc.3.