Marital gift-giving

As a card-carrying Wife, I feel I must call my Husband’s attention to a recent feature in Town & Country magazine, “40 of the Best Gifts for Wives.”

“Whatever you get for her needs to be meaningful and specific to her,” the story warns. “Never fear, we've searched far and wide for gifts that will make your wife swoon.”

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the wives of T&C readers find meaning and specificity mostly in jewelry, clothing, and expensive housewares, especially when these come with highbrow brand names (Le Creuset, Dolce & Gabbana) and celebrity street cred. On the list are “an updated version” of a sweater once worn by Princess Diana, a sneaker that is among Kate Middleton’s “staple pairs,” and a necklace that Taylor Swift wore in a music video, not to mention a $242 bottle of champagne and a $660 scented candle.

Missing from the list is anything for a wife who craves, say, a really good hammer, season tickets to a sporting event, or a new drum set—because in the world of T&C, Wife emphatically equals Traditional Girlie.

And thus it is that we reach the fourth item on the list—a seven-volume box set of the Penguin Classics edition of Jane Austen’s works, including the Juvenilia. “Be her Mr. Darcy by giving her shelves an update with these pretty, clothbound versions of her favorite author's swoon-worthy works,” T&C advises.

Those of us who have actually read Austen’s works, with their financially stressed heroines and multiple unhappy marriages, may think it strange to find her here on the Wife Gifts list, sandwiched between the $499 sheet set and the $198 Apple Watch band.

But these days, no other author’s works could fit so snugly on this particular list, because—thanks largely to the multiple screen adaptations--no other author is coded as both smart and accessible, romantic and squeaky-clean. Pretty, swoony, and wifey: that sums up Jane Austen’s pop culture brand. All that’s missing is a nod to her alleged feminism: radical, yet unthreatening!

But back to the gift-giving advice: It’s OK, honey. I have the Austen books already, and I really don’t want the sheets or the scented candle. Wouldn’t turn down that Le Creuset pot, though. If you’re, you know, looking for something meaningful and specific.