Definition of "wifely"

Being a domestic man, John decidedly missed the wifely attentions he had been accustomed to receive, but as he adored his babies, he cheerfully relinquished his comfort for a time, supposing with masculine ignorance that peace would soon be restored.

1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women‎, Part 2, Chapter 38

'Behold!' and she took his hand and placed it upon her shapely head, and then bent herself slowly down till one knee for an instant touched the ground - 'Behold! in token of submission do I bow me to my lord! Behold!' and she kissed him on the lips, 'in token of my wifely love do I kiss my lord.'

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887

A woman who does not nose into the domestic arrangements of the place she is going to occupy gives the first hint, for a woman indifferent to the heating, furnishing, plumbing, cooking utensils of her home is not wifely.

1944, Emily Carr, “Unmarried”, in The House of All Sorts‎

I endeavoured to soothe. “You can't blame yourself.” “Yes, I can.” “It isn't your fault.” “I invited Wilbert Cream here.” “Merely from a wifely desire to do [your husband] a bit of good.”

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins