Dear Susan,

I am sure that women - and quite a few men - all over the world must be singing your praises, and be grateful to you for helping their home life become more relaxed and peaceful. I know that 'Petticoat Discipline Monthly' has been a great success as far as I am concerned.

We are not wealthy, and live in a fairly rough part of London, and after we were married my husband continued seeing far too much of his friends, and going to the football with them, even to games quite a distance away up north. He really wasn't so bad in other ways, or I would never had considered marrying him, but I strongly suspected that he was frightened of 'losing face' with his mates.
I needed to start his marital training, but was unsure how to go. I had discussed it with a friend in the tea room at work, and Maggie showed me your awesome magazine - we don't have a computer.

We used an old ruse, Maggie had some mint flavoured chloral hydrate, and we mixed a good dose up in a fancy creme de menthe cocktail one weeknight when I invited her over, and soon we had a few photographs of him with a housemaid cap on his head, that I bought from a costume shop, and a frilly bodiced apron draped on realistically enough (I had three very nice pretty pinnies for him, all nicely starched and ready), along with a placard around his neck reading, 'I'm a Spurs Sissy'. Maggie took charge of the film, and it was very safe with her. She can handle just about any man anyway, and her hubby is a copper. Our worst threat was sending the pictures to a rival team's fan publication, and a pale faced Trevor could see that he was beaten.

I told him that he would have to wear his pinafore every night, and on weekends, except when he went out with me, and if he was disobedient in any way, then it would be a complete set of maid's clothes, including a girdle, which I would make sure was very tight.

It worked as you said it should, and once he was pinafored, and he realised that there was no chance of escape, and that his weekends would now be devoted to me, and keeping our flat spic and span, he become very submissive and subdued. I don't know what he eventually told his friends, but they gave him heaps for a while about being tied to my apron strings (actually he was tied to his own apron strings), and eventually he was forgotten by them, and he his acquaintances became my family and friends, including Maggie, who thought it was great fun for me to have a petticoated hubby at my beck and call.

I used another little trick that I had picked up from 'Petticoat Discipline Monthly', and pinned a baby's dummy to the bodice of his pinafore - just in case he wanted to have a little cry about his new station in life, I had the answer ready. And it was in the team colours - you know how these football types are crazy to get their children sporting the team colours before they can walk (I bet they're even worse in Scotland), well the club was selling them, so I bought one - just to help out the club, you understand!

But it was Maggie, bless her, who came up with the best idea of all, she asked me to give her his pinafores when he wasn't wearing them, and she returned them with the bodice of each sewn with big pink satin lettering, reading, 'PINNIES RULE, OK?'

And they do!!!

Thank you again for a wonderful magazine,

'A Sensible Wife'
Hackney.

Petticoating has been used by the courts on a number of occasions, almost exclusively in the United States, where they have some very strange statutes on their books. Whether we could persuade British courts to petticoat football hooligans, and confine them to the house under the rule of their mothers or wives, I don't know. It would solve a dreadful social problem if we could, and yes, it is worse in Scotland.

Done in the right way, even these yahoos might be kissed by the magic of petticoat discipline, and realise that it provided a much happier and more satisfactory life - and a more law-abiding life - than fighting on the terraces. Anyway, here, at least, is one young man who, although not a football hooligan, was not paying his wife the attention she deserved. But now that he is imprisoned in his pinnies, Im sure he won't be giving  her any more trouble! Thank you for writing, 'Sensible Wife'.
Susan