Reviewed by Joseph Jastrow
Dial 69:201 Ag ’20 1150w + Outlook 125:281 Je 9 ’20 140w + Springf’d Republican p11a Je 20 ’20 650w The Times [London] Lit Sup p719 D 4 ’19 60w
MYERSON, ABRAHAM.[[2]] Nervous housewife. *$2.25 (4½c) Little 616.8
20–21011
“Every practicing physician, every hospital clinic, finds her a problem, evoking pity, concern, exasperation, and despair.” (Introd. note) By examining the various causes and forms of nervousness in housewives, from merely deënergizing neurasthenia to highly pathological cases, from all points of view, the book seeks to stimulate the trend toward greater individualization in women, and to promote a more constructive and intelligent rebellion against old-established conditions and discontents. The book is indexed and the chapter headings are: The nature of “nervousness”; Types of housewife predisposed to nervousness; The housework and the home as factors in the neurosis; Reaction to the disagreeable; Poverty and its psychical results; The housewife and her husband; The housewife and her household conflicts; The symptoms as weapons against the husband; Histories of some severe cases; Other typical cases; Treatment of the individual cases; The future of woman, the home, and marriage.
“Written sympathetically and sensibly for the housewife herself to read.”
+ Booklist 17:144 Ja ’21 Boston Transcript p6 D 4 ’20 360w
“There is a note of pessimism about the book, despite its wholesomeness, that strikes a discordant chord here and there. But on the whole the book is sane, frank without being indelicate, wise, and fairly well-written.”
+ − N Y Evening Post p12 D 31 ’20 270w