Fanny Fern and Her "Hints to Young Wives"

When reading Fanny Fern's piece "Hints to Young Wives", I started to appreciate her use of humor in rather stoic situations. Considering the poem/column is about a woman warning other women about their straying husbands, I liked that she took a rather sarcastic approach rather than allowing women to play the victim which can tend to happen with this type of material.

For example, in the piece she refers to the protagonist as a "poor little innocent fool". She feels bad for the protagonist because she fell for all of her husband's tricks and did nothing to stop it rather than sympathize with the woman and pity her.

In reading some of her other columns, I've come to believe that that was a unique trait of Fanny's. She was able to apply humor in situations where maybe other poets and authors would not. She brought a likeability to her stories because they are not all laced with depressing tales. As someone who enjoys humor in what she reads, I appreciated  reading Fanny's column.