Perhaps more known than read, the poem contributed to Victorian rhetoric about a woman's proper role and the cult of domesticity. Letter to Young Girls and Young Ladies. John Wiley and Sons,1888. In his Letter to Young Girls and Young Ladies , John Ruskin separates the male, public sphere from the female, domestic sphere. Ruskin goes on to suggest that this domestic temple is a moral quality that follows a woman wherever she goes.
Woman is home and home is woman.
The storyline follows a young wife's journey into marriage as she learns that cleanliness and good cooking provide the key ingredients to a happy home. A Play about a Good Woman. Presentation copy Inscribed by Wilde to Cosmo Lennox. The married, middle-class woman held little appeal for Oscar Wilde and part of his rhetorical efforts were aimed at tearing down the institution of the good woman and domesticity that writers like Ruskin and Patmore had built up. I have met hundreds of good women.