But a number of other wives who, like Edith, did not have university degrees could by their expert management of the household make their home into something of a social centre for their husbands’ friends, and so participate in much of their lives. Unfortunately everything worked out rather differently for Edith. She was inclined to be shy, for she had led a very limited social life in childhood and adolescence, and when she came to live in Oxford in 1918 she was unnerved by what she found.
