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Old Wives’ Tales from 1903
The Perfect Woman
A few years ago, my friend Penny gave me an old book that I found very interesting. The book, “The Perfect Woman,” by Mary H. Melendy, M.D., PhD is according to the author, “a book giving full information on all the mysterious and complex matters pertaining to women.” It was published in 1903. There’s a good chance, my grandmothers might have read this book. Certainly, the advice to women in this book was common in the time period. However, to our eyes and ears it sounds very quaint, perhaps even backward.
Compared to advice to women today in women’s magazines and other publications, the advice for “The Perfect Woman” seems quite dated. In fact, it is 116 years old and much has changed since this book was written.
The book contains information on everything a woman might experience including “bearing, nursing, and rearing children; hints on courtship and marriage; limitation of offspring; health, mental and physical beauty, etc., etc. including diseases peculiar to women, their treatment and their cure” (Melendy).
The book is filled with illustrations. In the first chapter about the human body there are the nude figures of a man and a woman. The woman is featured as nude, but the mostly nude male figure conveniently features a well-placed fig leaf.
