A modest domestic wife.
Example:
Critics of Hillary Rodham Clinton would perhaps have preferred her to be a Penelope, quietly keeping house and staying out of politics.
In the Odyssey, Penelope waits 20 long years for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy. During that time, she must raise their son and fend off the attentions of numerous rough suitors. She preserves herself for a long time by saying that she cannot remarry until she has finished weaving a funeral shroud for her aging father-in-law; however, what she weaves each day she secretly unravels each night. A Penelope, thus, appears to be the perfect, patient, faithful wife, and she uses her clever intelligence to keep herself that way.