From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmodel wife/employee/student etcmodel wife/employee/student etcPERFECTa wife, employee (=worker) etc who is considered to be good because they do everything they should SYN exemplary His lawyers tried to show him as a model husband and father. → model
Examples from the Corpus
model wife/employee/student etc• Afterwards she would be full of remorse and would return to playing the clean-living model student.• First, she had to have earned good grades; second, she had to have been a model student.• Two other girls were model students.• In all she was a model wife, and earned the esteem of everyone in the town.• Unlike Aung San and Sukarno he was a model student, excelling despite his marginal position.• How is that model employee of yours?• He is in other words a model student though not necessarily a good one.• Xavier Hicks, model student, was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a concealed weapon. 