Your husband must have a really small foot. I am making a pair of socks for my son who wears a 10 1/2 size shoe. His foot is 9 1/2 inches long, so I make the body of the sock 7 1/2 inches and do the toe decrease over the next 2 inches for a total of 9 1/2.
I measure the foot from the rounded end of the toe to the rounded end of the heel.