Key to happy marriage? Picking up socks, says Taylor Bradford
YOU would perhaps expect a bestselling romance novelist’s advice on a happy marriage to be a little less humdrum.
But according to Barbara Taylor Bradford, the secret to a successful relationship is simply picking up your husband’s socks.
The 84-year-old, best known for her 1979 novel A Woman Of Substance, said that wives should dote on their partners.
The author, who has been married to film producer Robert Bradford for 54 years, said: ‘The secret is to like each other, have similar interests and to pick up his socks.
‘It’s really very simple to me. If you love a man very much and are married to him, and you know he loves you, you pick up his socks.
‘You mother him a bit. He’s used to being mothered, he’s had a mother. Women have had a mother, but women are the nurturing sex, they nurture people.’
But the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations disagreed, saying: ‘Stereotypes are limiting.’
Mrs Taylor Bradford, who in the 1960s wrote guides called How To Be The Perfect Wife, has sold 90million books and has a fortune of £188million. Speaking at a Good Housekeeping event to promote latest novel Secrets of Cavendon, the Leeds-born author said: ‘If you love a man, you’ll do anything that makes his life easier and help him – as long as you don’t commit a criminal act, like murder somebody.’