What is Walter's marriage like in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"?How are the marriage roles different then to todays society?

The marriage is one where Walter is a defeated,
emasculated man, used and scorned by his wife. Mitty, clearly unable to be part of the
war effort, is too old, incapacitated or mentally unsuitable to fight for his country.
His heroism is exerienced only in his dreams, and it is often his wife who punctures
them-

The Old
Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of hell!" .
. .

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs.
Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"

"Hmm?" said
Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked
astonishment.

He is chastised
for driving at a speed she deems appropriate. Then he is questioned and bullied like a
child to wear his driving gloves-

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"Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost
your gloves?"

Mitty continues
on his mundane errands punctuated with heroic dreams. He is reprimanded again by his
wife when she cannot see him in the hotel they agreed to meet at. He challenges her
attack for once-

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'I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it
ever occur to you that I am sometimes
thinking?"

His challenge is
however thwarted by her cold threat of medical
intervention-

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She looked at him. "I'm going to take your
temperature when I get you home," she
said.

Walter Mitty is so
dominated by his wife that the last daydream he has in the story is facing a firing
squad, an image he deems better than facing his wife
-

...he faced
the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the
Undefeated, inscrutable to the
last.