How disconcerting - how delightful! - to find from B.J.'s fascinating review, in your number 7 issue, of 'Petticoat Government Through the Years', that I am not as modern a woman as I thought I was. Forty years ago, apparently, before I was even born, domineering wives were putting their husbands into pinafores and petticoats, and making them do the housework, and some down-trodden  males at least, were experiencing the humiliation and indignities of nappies and baby treatment. And I thought that this was the age of the emancipated woman!

But no matter. It doesn't reduce in the slightest the pleasure and satisfaction that I get from seeing my husband in his cute baby attire, to know that, forty years ago, his father may have been sufferring just the same humiliations, and going through the same ordeal of nappy changing, and bottle feeding, and general babyfication that are my hubby's daily lot: indeed, if anything, the mere thought adds a little erotic spice to the delightful and amusing 'game'.

I must ask mama-in-law one day! She hasn't yet seen her precious only son back in his nursery clothes, but who knows? She might enjoy this rather intriguing situation! She used to change his nappies, and attend to his baby needs, when he was just a helpless tot, so she might enjoy doing so now that he's an even more helpless 25 year old!

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun! So many of the things that B.J. mentions are daily occurrences in our own household. I haven't sent my husband to answer the door yet in his nappies, but babies are not allowed that sort of freedom anyway - he spends his time imprisoned in a child's playpen, from which he is released only when I see fit to bring him out to attend to the housework.

But humiliation in front of visitors is certainly very much a part of his unhappy fate, and I have many woman friends of all ages who visit us regularly, and take an active part in demonstrating to poor 'Baby' just what they think of him. He has even spent a weekend being 'looked after' by one of the ladies while I was away, and he won't forget that in a hurry. She kept him strapped down in a cot all the time, and fed him only on warmed baby milk, given in a nursing bottle, and big spoonfuls of cod liver oil, and he was very, very glad indeed to see Mummy home again.

On one thing, at least, I have perhaps gone a little beyond those good dominating ladies of the past, for I make regular use of an outsize 'twin' pram in which, much to his disgust and misery, my husband is put out in the garden when he is naughty. Not too naughty: 'Baby' may have the hood up. Very, very naughty: it stays down, and my prettily dressed, dummy-teated, and benappied 'baby' is left embarrassingly exposed! Half an hour like this is long enough to bring cry-baby tears of repentence, and the usual 'sentence' is at least two hours. So you can just imagine what a state he's in when I finally wheel him back in. But it's good for him, and even if I'm not the first woman in the world to adopt these methods, I have every intention of continuing to use them.

Thank you B.J. - and thank you sir, for a delightful magazine.

E.T. (Mrs)
Wilts.

The letter 'Petticoat Government Through the Years' will be reproduced as Letter 1 in the January issue. It is a beautiful letter, and ideal to start off Volume 2 of our little publication. You need to think hard about your inaugral letter. I gave a lot of thought to which classic item of petticoating correspondence should have the singular honour of being the very first published in 'Petticoat Discipline Monthly'. 'Pinafored for Discipline' is only short, but it involves so many facets, and is written in such a terse, down-to-earth, matter-of-fact tone, that I found it delightful, and exactly the letter to get us going.

Yes, petticoat discipline has been around for a long time. And long may it continue. It can bring the peace, love, and goodwill which are described to us as part of the 'Christmas Spirit', but which should be part of the human spirit, 365 days a year.
Susan