The Mutton Chop Test: Choosing a Wife in 1829 William Cobbett's Advice to Young Men How to Judge a Wife by Her Jaws, Footsteps, and Needle Ownership
Vices and Volumes | Navigate Irish and British History's Absurdities from 1800s Books
How do you judge if a woman will make a good wife? Georgian radical William Cobbett's 1829 answer: watch her eat a mutton chop. Firm, decisive biting indicates good character. Tentative squeezing indicates disaster.
Discover Cobbett's bizarre physical tests: walking speed reveals capacity for love (quick step = good, sauntering = cold-hearted mother), jaw movements predict industriousness, voice quality indicates laziness ("mawmouth women" are disgusting). These reflected Georgian physiognomy—the belief that moral character could be read from physical features.
The contradiction: Cobbett demands absolute wifely obedience yet spent nights walking barefoot through Philadelphia throwing stones at dogs so his wife could sleep. Through 37 years of exile, imprisonment, and scandal, Anne Reid stayed.