The year 1850 was also a time when one large life insurance company's records showed its first policy issued to a female, reports the American Council of Life Insurance. She was one Caroline Ingraham, 36, of Madison, N.J. The policy register of November 19th, which contains the entry of Miss Ingraham's policy, lists her occupation as "Woman."

The book details what the man is required to accomplish and what the better half is to do.
While most of the tasks the man is required to accomplish require only the knowledge of how to use a rolling pin or knife, I will warn you now that a couple of the recipes require the man to cook the meat — steak, pork chops.
One recipe, heaven forbid, asks the better half to only lay the table and then relax—while the man is required to open a couple of cans and then slave over a hot stove while "she" sips the fruit of the vine and relaxes.

Prof Carrie Paechter, director of the Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families, said the advert was "like something out of the 1950s" and called for it to be removed.

Dave Fougner is six-foot-two, plays tennis, raises horses and shows them, teaches fifth and sixth grades at Steele Lane School, has real estate and air plane pilot licenses, is married and has a family. His hobby? Knitting!... Dave, a big, genial, friendly man of 28 says, "I like to knit in bed watching television."

Jennifer, his blonde wife, and Christa, their three-year-old, sat in on the interview at the Fougner (pronounced foe-gner) home on Loch Haven Drive. Jennifer laughed and added, "I don't knit."

On a marble table near me (the couple also collects antique furniture, refinishing it when they have some free time) lay a copy of Dave's book, "The Manly Art of Knitting," a picture of him astride Jennifer's beautiful registered Palomino quarter horse, Fore's Dandy, on the cover. You have to look twice before you realize that he's knitting atop the horse...

"One reason I wrote the book was to encourage men to try knitting. There's a doctor in town who knits. It's amazing how many men do but are afraid to admit it..."

And knitting was primarily a man's job before the Industrial Revolution, he said. "Knitting was an art. An apprentice knitter served six years."

— The Santa Rosa Press Democrat - Apr 8, 1973