“Henpecked” husband invented “wife tamer” for his “nagging” wife
In 1862 a publican in the UK called Harry Tap (no pun intended presumably) invented a giant cot called the ‘wife tamer’, reports the Daily Mail.
A cross between a coffin and a cradle, the inscription down the side read: ‘Hen Pecked Club’s Peace Box No 6, Patent Cure for a Cross Wife”.
He made six of them, one of which was donated to a museum in 1937. The Daily Mail reports (with some glee) that it’s the most popular exhibit.
The museum’s curator explained that: ’The idea of this Hen Pecked Club was that you made your wife very, very happy – black her shoes, make her porridge, carry her handbag.
‘If after all that she still henpecked you, you would get some of your friends round, draw back the lid, put your wife in and rock her gently until she was asleep”.
Honestly, I’m not making this up. Fiona Bruce, broadcaster, newsreader and “self-proclaimed feminist” came across the coffin/cot when filming an episode of the UK tv programme, Antiques Roadshow.
Unfortunately she was persuaded to clamber in and you can see a photo of her in this “emphatically non-pc piece of furniture”.
I wonder why there’s no equivalent for nagging husbands? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.
