03-23-2004, 09:40 PM
Quote:School Trains Girls to Be Good Wives
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Once a week after school, a group of girls from well-to-do Mexican families troops to a meticulously kept house in the south of the capital for a class in how to become the perfect wife.
Girls aged 13 to 18 sit eagerly through lessons in cooking, sewing, ironing, dressing, folding napkins, serving a formal dinner and adding feminine flourishes to a home, like a posy of flowers in the bathroom or initials embroidered on the towels.
Such skills, according to teacher Tota Topete, risk becoming a lost art as Mexico's young women join a global trend of focusing on careers rather than housekeeping.
\"Now all women want to go out to work, but working an eight-hour day when one is a wife or a mother is just not possible,\" Topete, a vivacious and impeccably groomed 60-year-old, said after one of her evening classes.
\"It means neglecting one's husband. He could start looking elsewhere for affection and that could mean divorce,\" she warned.
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