The Stepford Wives language after the publication of Levin's book and it is generally used as a derogatory term which refers to a submissive and docile wife who seems to conform blindly to the stereotype of an old-fashioned subservient role in relationship to her husband. It is sometimes used in reference to any woman, even an accomplished professional woman, who had subordinated her life or career to her husband's interests and who affected submission and devotion to him even in the face of the husband's public problems and disgrace. The Stepford Wives The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical thriller novel by Ira
Man and Wife (novel) Man and Wife (novel) Man and Wife was Wilkie Collins’ ninth published novel. It is the second of his novels (after "No Name") in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his novels to explore social abuses, which according to critics tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time the novel was written, any couple who were legally entitled to marry and who asserted that they were married before witnesses, or in writing, were regarded in Scotland