Part 22

The mistake that most wives make is in taking their husbands too seriously. They have heard so much about the mighty masculine intellect that they think their husbands are profound, thoughtful human beings who mean every word they say and whose every act is part of a deeply considered plan of life. Whereas the truth is that men babble just as meaninglessly as women do, and are the creatures of impulse. Also, women are under the misapprehension that they have a monopoly on nerves, and that hysterics are the sole prerogative of the feminine sex.

These beliefs make women attach a significance to the things that men say and do to which they are not entitled; and it makes them “get their husbands wrong” and break their hearts over crimes that the poor, blundering men do not even know that they are committing.

In consequence whereof the wife’s feelings are in a constant state of laceration, and she meets each hard knock with a still harder one, or else goes off and salts her wounds down in the brine of her tears.

Now, no one will argue that a human cyclone is a pleasant companion to live with, nor would any sane woman pick out a man who is giving a life-like imitation of the Day of Wrath with whom to spend her evenings. But, all the same, women make themselves unnecessarily miserable by taking their husbands’ humors too seriously.

The cruel speeches that stab the wife to the soul are not prompted by malice toward her. They are the reaction of nerves that have been frazzled to the breaking point by the worries of the day at the office. The frozen silence which the wife finds it so hard to endure is just sheer exhaustion of mind and body, and the woman who can just take her husband’s moods this way can not only save herself many a tearfest, but can make her husband eat out of her hand by feeding him and laughing at him and jollying him along.

Certainly, the woman who is married to a nervous, overworked man might well do a little mental balancing of accounts and check off a lot of temper, and impatience, and unreason, and fault finding against the finery he gives her, and the success he has achieved, of which she is so proud and which he has literally bought with his life’s blood. She might well forgive his faults and deal leniently with them, since they are the direct result of his struggle to lap her in luxury.

She is, believe me, a discerning and a tender wife who answers her husband’s irascible speeches with a pat on the head and a “there, there, it’s all right,” as she would a sick and fretful child, instead of going to the mat with him.

So much for the wife’s side of the question. Now for the husband’s.

Business furnishes no alibi for surliness, and grouchiness, and general disagreeableness. No man has a right to come home at night and dump down on his own hearthstone all the nerves, and temper, and irritability he has kept bottled up in him all day.

Because a woman has the misfortune to be a man’s wife is no reason he should insult her and say to her things that he would not say to any other woman who had an able-bodied brother, or that he would not dream of saying to any woman who had $10 to spend across his counter, or who was his client, or his patient.

If a man can control his temper and his tongue in dealing with the outside world, he can control it still at home. If he can be polite and courteous and flattering to other women, he can make the same gracious speeches to his wife, instead of growling like a bear when she asks him a simple question. And if he has any sense of honor, he will be the more careful of what he says to his wife than he is to the others, because his attitude means nothing to them, but his wife’s whole happiness is dependent on the way he treats her.

Nor does the fact that he overworks excuse a man’s irritability at home. Nine wives out of ten would rather have a little more amiability from their husbands and less money, if they had to choose between the two. The beloved husbands and wives are not those who work themselves into a state of nervous irritability for their families. They are those who keep themselves calm, and good natured, and pleasant to live with.

To expect other people to overlook our temper and forgive the cross and cruel speeches that we flash out at them without provocation is demanding too much of human nature.

XXXIII

DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET YOUR HUSBAND SEE YOU LOVE HIM

A woman asks this question: “Is it wise for a wife who loves her husband devotedly to let him see how dear he is to her? Does the knowledge that her heart is his for keeps make him undervalue it? Does she best keep his interest in her alive by keeping him on the anxious seat? After all, a husband is still a man, and we know that before marriage the more difficult a woman is to win the more a man chases her; and the more a woman throws herself at a man’s head the more adroitly he dodges her. So the question is, Does this same state of affairs continue after marriage? Do men want their wives to blow hot and cold, as they do their sweethearts, or do they desire them to be a good, steady, reliable fire on the hearthstone?”

A man’s attitude toward love undergoes a complete change on his wedding day. During his courtship, the thing that has been of more importance to him than anything else in the world has been the state of mind of his lady love. It has been a wonderful, sentimental adventure following all her moods and tenses, and plumbing the depths of her emotions. It has roused his sporting blood for her to be coy and difficult. Taking her away from his rivals was a game of fascinating intrigue, and he thrilled with the sense of being a conquering hero when she finally surrendered to him.

But marriage is another pair of sleeves. It is a different story altogether. A man marries to end romance, not to have it to-be-continued-in-our-next serial that will run on the balance of his life. He wants to be done with doubts, and fears, and heart burnings, and speculation about the woman he loves, so that he will be free to give his undivided attention to his business.

Therefore the tactics that won a woman a husband do not serve to hold him, and the wife who tries to pique her husband’s interest in her by her flirtations with other men is more apt to land in the divorce court than to strengthen her position in the domestic love nest. For men do not wish to be kept guessing about their wives. They want to be sure of them. The man who is married to a woman who plays around with other men and who keeps him on the ragged edge of nervous prostration with jealousies and suspicions does not think that he has drawn a capital prize in the matrimonial lottery. On the contrary, he thinks that he has been gold-bricked, and he is not crazy over his bargain.

No woman need be afraid to let her husband know how much she loves him, because her love makes the strongest claim she can possibly have upon him. Many a man who has made an unsuitable marriage with a woman with whom he had no real companionship; many a man who has outgrown the woman he married in his youth, is kept faithful to her by the knowledge of her devotion to him. It takes a brute to hurt the one who worships you, or to leave the one whose whole life is bound up in you.

Nor is there any charm of mind or person that appeals to a man so much as just the certainty of a wife’s love and the sure knowledge that if all the world turned against him, there is one who would still be standing shoulder to shoulder with him; some one who would go down to the gates of death with him, or wait outside of the prison gates for him; some one whom neither disease nor poverty nor disgrace would alienate from him. The coquettish woman who thinks to keep her husband’s affection for her at fever heat by keeping him uncertain of her has no such hold upon her man as has the wife whose husband’s heart doth safely trust in her, sure that whatever else fails him in life, her love will never fail.

A wife need not be afraid to show her husband her love, because men are just as heart hungry as women are. They crave affection and appreciation just as much as women do, and they long just as much as women do to be petted and fussed over.

No complaint is more common from women than that their husbands stop all love-making at the altar with a suddenness that jars the very marrow of their bones. They say that the men to whom they are married never seem to think that they long to be told that they are still loved and admired, and that they have made good as wives. They yearn for a kiss that is warm with passion, instead of a duty peck on the cheek that has about as much flavor to it as a cold batter cake.

But, apparently, it never occurs to these wives who are starving for some sign of real living affection themselves that their husbands are also on the bread line, mutely begging for a stray crumb of love. They do not realize that a great big, husky, successful man could want to be chucked under the chin, and babied, and told that he was the most booful thing on earth, and that his wifeikins got down on her knees and thanked God every night because she was lucky enough to get him, and that every day, in every way, she loved him better and better.

Yet there isn’t a man in the world that wouldn’t worship a wife who handed him that line of chatter, and who wouldn’t walk mighty straight and reverently before one who opened the doors of her heart and let him see that he was enshrined therein. No. No wife need be afraid of letting her husband know how much she worships him. For it is love that makes the world go round, and that greases the wheels of matrimony.

XXXIV

QUEER THINGS ABOUT MARRIAGE

Did you ever think how many queer things there are about marriage? To begin with, isn’t it queer that we permit boys and girls to get married at an age at which they are not permitted to make any other binding contract? The law appoints guardians to look after the property of minors, and prevent them from squandering it, or being cheated out of it by sharpers, but there is no legal safeguard to save foolish girls and boys from throwing away their life’s happiness on an ill-advised marriage.