The great art, the great science of happiness, in matrimony especially, is never to expect of life more than it can give. Therefore, prepare your nest in such a way that the provisions will not be exhausted in a few weeks. From the very beginning, put on the brake, or the car will go too fast, and will get smashed.
Economize your caresses, rule your passions so as never to make more promises than you can keep. You cannot always work unless now and then you take a rest, a holiday; neither can you always love unless you proceed quietly and occasionally take a holiday. Be sure that a holiday is as necessary to make you enjoy blissful times as it is to make you endure hard ones.
Do not for a moment believe that happiness in matrimony can go on for ever and ever withoutcalculation, without a great display of diplomacy on the part of both husband and wife. Avoid being too constantly the lover of your wife, because the lover-husband is such a revelation to a woman that when the day arrives—the fatal day!—on which the husband remains alone and the lover has ceased to exist, your wife will forget everything you may have done for her: your constant attentions, your assiduity to your profession or business, your forethought for her future and that for her children—all that will count for nothing when she realizes that the lover is gone.
Never allow a third person to interfere with your private affairs. Never confide your little troubles and grievances to anybody. Beware of the advising lady who would say to you: 'If I were in your place, I would not allow him to do this or to do that.' First of all, she is not in your place; secondly, she cannot be in your place, because she is neither in your heart nor in that of your husband.
You are the best judge—in fact, you are the only judge—of what is best for you to do in the presence of the many little difficulties that arise in married life. Whether you are happy or unhappy, keep the secrets of your married life to yourself; neither your happiness nor your misfortune will cause you to increase the number of your friends. Indeed, if you are perfectlyhappy, it is only by remaining silent about it that you will get people to forgive you your happiness.
Accept a life of abnegation and devotion. There is in devotion a bliss which is unsurpassed. Devotion is perhaps the most refined and lofty form of selfishness; it raises you so much in your own estimation! It enslaves so surely the hearts of those whom you love! Devotion is not a sacrifice; it is a halo.
If I were a woman, I would give all the pleasures of life to witness the smile of my husband on a sick-bed as I entered the room to come and sit by his side with his hand in mine. In health, the man loves to feel that he is the protector of his wife; in sickness, there is no such arbour for him as the arms of the woman he loves.
From inquiries which I have made right and left I have arrived at this conclusion—that, out of a hundred couples who have got married, fifty would like to regain their freedom after six months of matrimonial life, twenty have come to the same opinion after a couple of years, ten more after a longer period, and about twenty are satisfied, though, in the last case, it often amounts to making the best of it. Not ten of them spend their leisure time in returning thanks that they got married—perhaps ten, but certainly not more.
And I will add this—that, among my friends and acquaintances, the couples who live most happily together are, without exception, those who made up their minds to be married most quickly, and did not attempt, during years and years of engagement, to try and learn how to know something of each other. I do not give this as a piece of advice to those about to marry. I simply state a fact, although I am prepared to admit that long engagements have never been the proper way of preparing for matrimony.
In my opinion, the majority of marriages will have a chance of turning out happily when the following will have become customs and laws:
1. Before a man makes love to a woman with the intention of asking her to become his wife, and before a woman allows a man to speak love to her, certainly before she accepts his offer of matrimony, both will have ascertained that there is no disease, moral or physical, of an hereditary nature in either family; that the man has been a good and devoted son, a cheerful brother, and an honest man in all his dealings, well spoken of by his employers or his acquaintances; that the girl is not an extravagant woman, and has, among her friends, the reputation of being amiable, cheerful, and a favourite at home; that both will have sufficient means to support themselves.
I will go further. I will say that it should not only be a custom to make inquiries about the antecedents of the parties, and their financial position, but a law, and a strict law, too, that would prevent couples from marrying who were likely to present society with undesirable children, or become a burden to the community. I believe that no emigrant is allowed to land in America who cannot prove that he possesses some means of existence. No couples should be allowed to enter the 'State of Union' who cannot prove that they possess means to support themselves, and are healthy in mind and in body.
2. Girls will be told, like in the past, that theirdestiny is to be one day wives and mothers, but they will be intelligently prepared for both noble vocations. They will come out of school able to keep a house, cook a good, palatable meal, and make their own dresses. They will know how to get their money's worth when they go a-shopping. They will have learned how to attend to babies, and have played with live dolls. They will have listened to, and profited by, lectures on hygiene. They will know all these things, besides possessing the accomplishments which are only meant to be dessert in matrimonial life.
Boys who have never been once told that their destiny is to become one day husbands and fathers will be prepared to be tolerably good ones. They will be taught the consideration that man should always show to woman. They will be taught to take off their hats to women and young girls, and advised to do the same one day to their own wives when they meet them. When they get to be eighteen or twenty, they will be informed of women's characteristic traits. They will be told that a woman who accepts an offer of matrimony does a man more honour than he conferred on her by making the offer.
When men and women shall by early training be made, the former less selfish and conceited, the latter less frivolous and extravagant, the chances of happiness in matrimony will be greatly increased.
Still, the problem will not be solved.
You will never prevent matrimony being a lottery. Take your ticket and—your chance.
After all, matrimony is like a mushroom. The only way to ascertain whether it is the genuine article or poison that you have got is to swallow it—and wait.
A cynic once said that in this world men succeed through the qualities which they do not possess. By this he meant to say that to cope with the pushing crowd, you must not be too scrupulous, or you will let everybody pass before you.
A worse cynic, one of the blackest type and deepest dye, went as far as to say: 'The way to succeed is to have unbounded impudence, popular manners, absence of scruple, and complete ignorance of everything.'
But, then, take it for granted that this cynic was only a disappointed failure. You will constantly hear the man who has failed in life exclaim: 'Oh, if I had not always wished to remain perfectly honest, I could have succeeded like many others I know.'
Just as you hear women who fail to get engagements on the stage or the concert platform remark: 'If I had had no objection to obtaining engagements in the way some women do, I would have made my mark—but I am not one of that sort.'
At the risk of appearing paradoxical, and even cynical, I will venture to say that in love, and in matrimonyespecially, certain great qualities are more detrimental to the happiness of women than many of their defects. And if this is a correct statement, to what shortcoming of man are we going to attribute it?
I know that on reading this some women will exclaim: 'Shame on you to say such a thing!' Very well, will you listen to me? Look around you, among all your circles of friends and acquaintances, of relatives even, and tell me if, as a rule, the young girl who is vain, selfish, coquettish, a flirt even, has not better chances of marriage, and is not sought after rather than the simple, unaffected, devoted, intellectual girl? Tell me if the bumptious rose does not generally carry the day over the modest, retiring violet?'
Of course, I know that you will say to me, 'You may be right; men—I mean most men—are caught, like mackerel, by shining bait; but when a man is married, surely he is not slow to recognise which of the two is the right one to have as a wife, and to appreciate all the qualities and virtues of the second one.'
Well, you are wrong—wrong as can be. Look around you again, study now the married couples that you know, and you will have to confess that the wife who is coquettish, frivolous, clever, will know how to make herself respected, and even feared, by her husband much more than the other.
That husband will pay to her his best attentions, will be proud of her, and will work like a slave in order to meet all the expenses required for the adornmentof her beauty without once venturing to make a remark.
I tell you that if I had a marriageable daughter, whom I wanted to get rid of, I would tell her to put all her retiring ways in the cloak-room and to assert herself, and, after the wedding ceremony, I would whisper in her ears:
'My dear child, never make yourself the slave of your husband; be good, faithful and devoted to him, but do not forget that man is a strange animal, who seldom appreciates what he does not pay for. In this respect men are like those people who listen breathlessly to music in a hall or theatre where they have paid a guinea for their seats, and who, as guests in a drawing-room, take the very best music as a signal for entering into general conversation. If you want your husband to listen to your music, make him pay for his seat.'
The poor little woman who follows to the letter all the lectures she has heard on matrimony, at home and at church wedding ceremonies, will soon find the irreparable mistake she has made. In this rôle of devoted slave she will lose her beauty, her intelligence, her very mind, and will wither rapidly.
Devoting herself, body and soul, forgetting herself always in order to increase the welfare of her husband she will work, wear herself out, until, when her beauty is gone, her husband will feel for her nothing but indifference, if not, alas! sometimes contempt.
If one of the two must endure a privation in order that the other may have more comfort, it should be the man, always the man: first, because hard work and privations do not hurt a man as they can hurt a woman, physically and mentally; secondly, because a woman is far more apt to appreciate self-abnegation in a man than a man in a woman.
All this does not mean that men are all brutes—no; although it must be admitted that there is something brutal in their very nature which is ever fascinated by what is piquant, and never excited by a devotion which they feel is, above all, the duty of the stronger toward the weaker.
Let women gently, diplomatically, but firmly, assert themselves on the very threshold of matrimony, or all the concessions which they make at the beginning will soon be considered by their husbands as their due. In matrimonial life, as in the government of nations, you can never take back concessions or privileges granted too quickly and without enough consideration.
Women who start married life as slaves will never be able to assert themselves or enjoy the slightest influence over their husbands; and bear in mind that no marriage has ever proved to be happy where the influence of woman, though sweet and gentle, has not been paramount.
I have many times been asked the question, Who are the best subjects for matrimony? I believe (kindly mark that I do not say I am sure) that the best subjects for matrimony are people with simple tastes, equable tempers, no very great aspirations, satisfied with doing little and being little. These, at all events, are the kind of people most likely to be happy in matrimony, far more likely than, say, for instance, the 'intellectuals,' who are ever in search of the pathway that leads to the higher walks of life, who have ambitions to satisfy and many inducements to divert their minds from the peaceful ways of contentment and happy matrimony. Little things please little minds, and those couples, whom we have all met in life, who know nothing, who dream of nothing above what they have got, who are perfect mutual admiration societies, are the best subjects for matrimony. These people, snoring under the same curtain, eating out of the same plate, as it were, having the same tastes, persuaded that no one is blessed with such children as they have, satisfied with all they do, sure that the religion they follow is the only true onein the world, spend a peaceful and happy life in the exchange of familiarities which, for them, constitute love. They respect and enjoy each other; they echo each other's sentiments; and their beings are coupled together, trotting along, like two dogs well looked after. Their discussions at home are never on any higher questions than whether green peas are better with duck than Brussels sprouts. They are cheerful, smiling. She calls him Smith or Brown, and he never speaks of her but as 'my good lady.' Before the children they call each other 'father' and 'mother.' They may be grocers, fruiterers—I don't care what they are; they are happy, perfect subjects for matrimony.
What divers and strange unions are sanctioned by matrimony, to be sure! By the side of resigned couples, harnessed together and painfully dragging the plough, those who have never been able to understand each other, through want of space, because they were too near to make proper observations; those who, alas! understand each other too well; sweet, amiable women of poetic dispositions, chained to matter-of-fact, brutal men; honest, saving, hard-working men fastened for life to silly, thoughtless, extravagant women; romantic women married to men who see no difference between Vesuvius in eruption and the smoking chimneys of Pittsburg or Birmingham; women of a keen, humorous disposition living with dullards unable to see a joke; Wagnerians having for wives women who prefer themusic of 'The Casino Girl' to that of 'Lohengrin': almost everywhere tragedy or comedy.
Matrimony is a very narrow carriage. If you want to be comfortable in it you have to be careful, or one will soon be in the way of the other. To put yourself to a little inconvenience now and then is the only way of making the other comfortable. To believe that love alone, without careful study, will resist all the shocks and will be all the more durable that it is ardent is the greatest mistake one can make in the world. Violent passion may be compared to Hercules, who might have enough strength to raise a palace on his shoulders, but not enough to stand a cold in his head. It is the thousand and one little drawbacks of matrimonial life that undermine it. Love will survive a great misfortune, but will be killed by the little miseries of conjugal partnership. In matrimony it is the little things that count and which, added up, make a terrible total. The waning love of a wife will not be revived by the present of a thousand pound pair of ear-rings, but it may be kept up by the daily present of a penny bunch of violets, which reminds her that you think of her every day of your life. It is not the great sacrifices that appeal to her as do constant little concessions. Many men would sacrifice their lives who would not give up smoking or their too frequent visits to their clubs for their wives. Many women will be theincarnation of devotion and self-abnegation who will not do their hair as their husbands beg them to.
Surely matrimony ought to procure happiness, for the greatest bliss on earth should be to love in peaceful security with the guarantee of the morrow. Matrimony is all right. So are the symphonies of Beethoven—when they are performed by orchestras who play in time and in tune.
The worst—indeed, the only serious—drawback to matrimony is that it is an everyday meal which, palatable as it may be, runs the risk of becoming insipid, and of making fastidious the people who have to partake of it. True, but then let people who are intelligent and thoughtful supply seasoning which will whet the appetite and combat Habit, that demon which is their deadliest enemy.
It is folly, rank folly, to believe that it is wise, even prudent, to exhaust all at once the sum of happiness, illusion, and love with which one enters the state of matrimony, and to give one's self body and soul until, soon satiated and by-and-by tired of each other, both will turn their heads away in disgust, and may, later on, lose them in despair.
There was a time, and I can remember it myself, when men as well as women wore wedding-rings. It was, I think, a very pretty custom. The wedding-ring ought to be worn by both husband and wife, not only as a constant reminder of faith sworn, but also as a talisman; it should be a cherished jewel given to the husband by the wife, as well as one given to the wife by the husband, and given in each case with a loving, earnest kiss impressed upon it. The wedding-ring is such a priceless jewel in the eyes of loving women that I have heard of some who became insane on losing it. Why should it not be priceless in the eyes of a man who loves his wife?
Every time that two beings who live together are not of the same opinion or of the same taste, a concession on the part of the one or of the other has to be made, or trouble will follow. This is a rule without exception. In conjugal parlance Concession is another name for Duty. Concessions should even be made ineveryday conversation, and long discussions most carefully and invariably avoided. Discussions are generally useless; they never lead to conviction, and may cause you to run a dangerous risk—that of losing your control over your good temper. In a wild desire to prove that he is right, a man will blurt out words that he will be sorry to have uttered, betray thoughts which he always meant to keep to himself, and when the discussion is over those words remain and the harm is done.
The moment a discussion takes too lively a form, one of the two should have enough self-control to stop adding fuel to it and remain silent, even at the risk of letting the other suppose that his (or her) arguments are unanswerable. Of course, this silence should be kind, discreet; not that odious silence of ill-assorted couples, which is a silence of disgust and hatred. If both man and wife are quick-tempered and unable to avoid a heated discussion, they should leave off at once; they should even separate and go, he to light a cigar in his library or in the garden, she to touch her piano or take up a novel, until both have forgotten all about it.
A mistake made by a great many married couples is to avoid speaking of money matters. But the most loving couples cannot altogether live on love and the air of the atmosphere; it is not given to all of them—in fact, it is given to only very few of them—to spendwithout having to count. A man and a wife are two friends, two partners, who should constantly hold pleasant little committee meetings of two in order to discuss all matters of pecuniary interest and balance their budget of receipts and expenditure. Once a week at least, they should employ an hour in this way, hand in hand, like the best of friends. Thus it is that by mutual confidence each will encourage the other to think of the future, and little by little both will soon find themselves possessing the nucleus of a small fortune, in which they will take more and more interest, and which one day, to their surprise, will be found quite snug and bearing an interest that will add considerably to their annual revenue.
A married woman should never consent to receive so much a week for household expenses, so much a month for her dress, and to be treated, so to speak, as a dependent person. It should be left to her to decide whether, considering what the financial situation is, she can afford two new hats or one only. The suggestion, much less the order, should not come from her husband, but from herself.
I like the French system, where a man consults his wife in all important matters of financial interest, such as the investment of savings, etc.; but from the day she is married, the French wife begins to be taught by her husband the details of his profession or business, and the best and safest investments of the day, and she immediately and invariably is appointed by himsecretary of the treasury—among the masses of the people, anyway—and that is why I have not the least hesitation is asserting the fortune of France is so stable and steady. It is because, thanks to the influence of the wife, French families have their money invested in the safest Government securities. So long as they can work, they are satisfied with a very small interest for their capital, in order to be quite sure that when the days of rest will become a necessity, that capital will be there to keep them, if not in wealth, at all events in comfort and complete independence.
When married couples have nothing better to do, they should amuse themselves making all sorts of plans for the future. They should plan journeys to distant countries, build castles in the air, buy country houses, and consult each other and decide how they shall furnish them and lay out the grounds. These plans are like barricades—they mask the future; besides, they cause you amusement and cost nothing. And—who knows?—among those many plans perhaps there will be one of your predilections that you will actually be able to realize. What happens then? Plans are akin to caresses—they go together hand in hand; they are the gratuitous pleasures of sweet intimacy.
Young married people should avoid being too demonstrative, not only in public, but in private, in thefirst years especially. They should constantly remember that they enter the state of matrimony with a certain capital of love. They must not squander that capital, but live on the interest of it only.
There are young people who too often feel the want of manifesting their love by exaggerated proofs of tenderness, such as the administration to each other of names of birds and pet quadrupeds, of showers of kisses, of little pats on the face. The exaggerated frequency of such acts produces a reaction, and often a slight sensation of enervation, that should never be born of caresses. And as these outward shows of love run the risk of diminishing in number and fervour, there is danger of their thus becoming a sign or a proof of decline in tenderness.
In public these demonstrations are ridiculous and vulgar; they put other people ill at ease, who smile and sneer, and even remark, 'They will soon get over it.'
To marry a beautiful woman for the mere love of her beauty is to undertake to dwell in a country that has a temperature of 100 in the shade without being provided with clothes that will enable you to stand a winter of 50 below zero when it comes.
In the relations between men and women it is, after all, beauty that makes woman particularly attractive to man. For this reason, the love of a man is more sensual, more jealous, than that of a woman, which is more affectionate, more confiding, and more faithful. As a rule, the passion of a husband goes on diminishing as that of his wife goes on increasing. A man exacts of his wife her first love; a woman exacts of her husband his last. Only the select few can manage their matrimonial affairs with such clever diplomacy as to make these different elements of happiness and sources of danger work together with success.
Married people would live more happily together ifthey could now and then forget that they are tied together for life. Any little scene that may help them to forget it should be enacted by them.
Happiness in matrimony is more solid when it is founded on friendship through thick and thin than when it is merely on love.
In love a moment of bliss is nothing; it is only the morrow which purifies and sanctifies it. How many married couples would be happy if they would only think of the morrow!
The husband who knows how to always keep something in store for his wife has solved the great problem of happiness in matrimonial life.
Cupid introduces men and women into that enclosure which is called matrimony, and then discreetly and almost immediately retires. What a pity it is he does not make their acquaintance later, in order to remain with them for ever!
Marriages would be very much happier if women preferred marrying men who love them to those whom they love.
Matrimony would be a glorious institution if women would take as much care of themselves for their husbands as they do when they expect guests at their dinner-parties and receptions.
Women should devote all their best attentions to learning how to grow old in time and gradually, and in remembering that tears make them unattractive, and angry looks hideous.
One of the greatest dangers to happiness in matrimony is not want of love, but too much of it, at the beginning especially. Love dies of indigestion more quickly than of any other disease. Never satiate your wife—or your husband—with love. Do not live on £10,000 the first year of your married life, and be obliged to reduce your income by £1,000 or £2,000 every year. Begin gently, quietly, and let your revenue, like your love, slowly but steadily increase. There lies your only chance. With self-control you have it at your disposal.
All vocations require preparation and apprenticeship. Matrimony is the only one which men and women can enter into without knowing anything about it. Alas!
In matrimony it is not 'All is well that ends well'; it is 'All is well that begins well, but not too well.' Starting from this principle, I have often advised young husbands to control themselves, and to be careful to avoid putting all their smartest dialogue and strongest situations in the first act of the comedy of matrimony, for fear lest the interest should go on flagging steadily to the end.
I have advised them to see that their wives do not get their own way in everything at once, and not to make themselves their abject slaves, because, just as no government has ever been known to successfully suppress, or even reduce, any liberty or privilege previously granted to the people, just so will no husband be able to recover one inch of the ground he has surrendered if he capitulates on the threshold of matrimony.
In fact, let young husbands and young wives behave toward each other in such a way that their friends will not smile and say: 'Lovely, but too good to last, I'm afraid.'
The dangers against which I have attempted to warn men exist for women—devoted, loving women who wish to start matrimony by trying to do the impossible in order to please their husbands, or, if not the impossible, at all events, what it may not be in their power to do for ever, or even for a long time.
One of these dangers is that of economy.
'My dear,' remarked a shrewd friend to a bride of a few weeks' standing, 'you will make a terrible mistake if you let your husband think that you can keep house on nothing.'
Young wives are sometimes pitifully anxious to be credited with remarkable cleverness as house-mistresses. The more they love their husbands, the less they like the idea of their toiling and moiling. Hence they are keenly anxious to prove themselves helpmeets in the literal sense of the word.
Not only will they name a far smaller sum as housekeeping money than their husbands can well afford to give them, but they will actually save out of that sum enough for their own clothes and petty cash expenses.
All this self-sacrifice is not only charming, but beautiful, when there is necessity for rigid economy. Young couples who wisely marry on small incomes, instead of wasting the sweetness of their youth over an endless engagement, must make a study of ways and means, and the wife who will cajole a shilling into doing duty for a five-shilling piece is a jewel beyond price.
Again, when times are bad, when the bread-winner falls ill, and the treasury runs dry, there is no more pathetic and lovely sight than the brave little wife who struggles and succeeds in keeping the wolf out of the house.
But in instances where no serious demand of this kind need be made upon a wife's ingenuity, she is a very short-sighted woman indeed who does not see the dangers and realize the evils of overzealous economy.
There would be fewer complaints of marriages that result in the wife being merely an unpaid servant or housekeeper, who cannot give notice to leave, if brides began as they meant to go on, for no one save those who have lived through the process knows how difficult it is to introduce a new régime when once its opposite had been inaugurated and accepted.
'You said you would find £3 10s. a week ample a month ago. Why in the world do you want £5 now?' asks the husband, whose wife has been foolishly anxious to impress him with her cleverness as an economist, and finds she cannot keep up the farce beyond the limit of a few weeks.
Economy may be carried too far from choice. There are women who simply love saving. They neglect their intellectual life, and abandon all attempts to keep in the movement, all in order to grind down the weekly bills. No reward awaits them.
The women who believe themselves perfect becausethey are economical, and consider the spring-cleaning of their house the greatest event of the year, grow old before their time, and are never the companions modern wives should be to their husbands.
Be good, but never overdo it, I will say to any woman who has the sense of humour.
When you are dining with an intimate friend, and anomelette au rhumis served, what do you do? Without any ceremony, you take a spoon, and, taking the burning liquid, you pour it over the dish gently and unceasingly. If you are careless, and fail to keep the pink and blue flame alive, it goes out at once, and you have to eat, instead of a delicacy, a dish fit only for people who like, or are used to have, their palates scraped by rough food. If you would be sure to be successful, you will ask your friend to help you watch the flame, and you will even ask him to lift the omelette gently so that the rhum may be poured all over it until the whole of the alcohol contained in the liquor is burned out.
Thisomelette au rhumis a fairly good symbol of matrimony.
In the earliest stage of married life the eggs have just been broken, beaten, and strewn with sugar, a light has been set, and everything is burning and perfectly beautiful. The young partakers of the matrimonial repast are intoxicated with their new life, their new emotions, their new sensations; they require noindulgence toward each other, no special cleverness or diplomacy to please each other; there are no concessions to make—neither of them can go or do wrong; the flame burns of itself.
I do not mean to say that the flame can be kept burning for ever and ever—alas! no, not any more than life can be made to eternally animate your body. The flame must go out one day, as some illness must one day end your life. But, just as hygiene teaches how to keep our good health prolonged by precautions of all sorts, just so does common-sense, aided by diplomacy and skill, help us to keep alive the flame of love between the man and the woman who have kindled it.
And let no woman accuse me of manly conceit if I say that, clever and attentive as the man must be, the woman has to be more clever and attentive still, and that simply because it is a fact—an uncontradicted fact (call it psychological if you like, or physiological if you prefer)—that the love or passion of a woman goes on naturally increasing in married life, whereas that of a man goes on just as gradually and steadily decreasing.
In marriage the flame of love has been known to keep long alive through the intelligence of the wife, and even without any effort in that direction on the part of the husband; but the contrary has never been known to be successful.
Woman is a divine delicacy who has to tempt the appetite of man; but the most exquisite delicacy may become insipid if served every day with theeternally same sauce. This is plain common-sense, and let me tell you this: that no married life (not one) has a shadow of chance to be happy for long unless the woman clearly understands and quickly realizes that, if moral duties are the same for men and women, Nature has made their temperaments absolutely different.
No coquetry in matrimony? Who is the Philistine who dares utter such blasphemy? Good heavens! if half the curling-pins, which are used by women at night in order to be beautiful the following day and attract the attention and admiration of strangers, were used by them in the morning, so that they might be beautiful the same day, and draw the attention and admiration of their husbands, there would be happiness in matrimony, and the world would go much better than it does.
The greatest, the most dangerous enemy of happiness in matrimony is habit which engenders monotony. You get too much accustomed to each other, and love fades, as a flower which falls off its stem before it has lived its natural life, owing to some insect which destroys it.
That insect in matrimony is habit, which devours everything without your being aware of its presence. Destroy that insect before it has had time to do any harm, and you will have saved your dual happiness.
A grave error committed by many women is to believe that they must look their best for the friends,acquaintances and strangers who visit them, but that they need not take much trouble for their husbands.
But the fact is that a woman ought to ever appear before her husband at her very best, whether it is in a morning negligée or in a full afternoon or evening toilette.
Your husband, my dear lady, ought to see in you more than he could see in any other woman. All comparisons ought to be to your advantage. It is not at all necessary that you should have an expensive gown on at breakfast-time. Your hair well fixed, and a nice-fitting dressing-gown may make you look as attractive as a beautiful ball-dress.
It is not clothes that make a woman fascinating; it is the way she puts them on.
In fact, never allow yourself to be seen by your husband in any other state than that in which you would allow yourself to be seen by the male portion of your acquaintances, not even in illness. As long as your strength permit, remain coquettish and jealous of your appearance. Yes, I say, even on a sick-bed.
The part you have to play consists in spraying a perfume of poetry around you. Fill your husband with remembrances of you, so that, even when you are not visible, you are present before his eyes.
Allow him the most complete liberty, and never ask him questions on what he has done, where he has been.
Take it for granted that he has done nothing which he should not have done, that he has been nowherewhere he should not have been, and it is that perfect confidence which you show you have in him that will always keep him in the path of faithfulness, unless he is, which is only exceptional, an absolutely bad man.
If clouds are gathering over your happiness, it is for you women to clear them away. You are the guardian angels of the home, which is your kingdom. If you have trials, strain every nerve to appear smiling, and if sometimes tears stifle you, shed them in secret, even should the cause of your trial be the inconstancy of your husband.
You will not bring him back to you with reproaches, tears and scenes. You will thus keep him away for good. Remember that Nature, which has treated you so ungenerously, makes you ugly when you weep and hideous when you make a scene.
You will bring back an erring husband by your kindness, your sweetness, your devotion, and your intelligence. The only infallible way to get a husband attached to you is to let him believe that you never suspected him, much less accused him, even when he was guilty. Call to your aid whatever resources are at your disposal—resources of intelligence, of beauty, of abnegation—and, if your husband is not a brute, he will return to you, and he will be all the more ashamed of the way in which he neglected you for a time that, by your behaviour, you seem to consider he had never for a day ceased to love you.
Never make an allusion to the fatted calf which youkilled on the return of the prodigal heart. Be as merciful in your victory as you were in your temporary defeat.
Do not be satisfied with forgiving; forget, and make him forget everything. Use scales: on one side place his years of devotion to you, his industry, his forethought in securing your future and that of your children; on the other his faults; and even if these scales should incline to remain horizontal, with a gentle touch of your finger make them go down in favour of what he has done for you.
The supreme coquetry of a woman is to know how to reign, even when her husband governs. Her very weakness is the best weapon in her hands. Her husband should be the motive of all her actions. Before thinking of appearing beautiful to the indifferent, she should think of appearing beautiful to her husband.
If she is admired, she should feel proud of it for his sake, and make him understand that only crumbs are for strangers; that he alone is invited to the whole meal of her beauty, her love, her boundless devotion.
And let me add that there is not, in this chapter, a single word of advice which I give to women in their dealings with husbands which I do not endorse and give to men in their dealings with their wives.
According to characters and circumstances, resignation is the virtue of the weak or the virtue of the strong. A woman resigns herself to her fate in married life, sometimes because she has not enough strength of will, sometimes because she does not deign to revolt, oftener still because she discovers that her rebellion could only make matters worse for herself, and especially for her children.
If her husband is good, her resignation will soon bring him back to her; if he is bad, her rebellion will make him much worse.
If you cannot sympathize with your husband, or adopt his views and manner of thinking, resign yourself, keep your views for yourself, and do not transform your married life into an eternal French public meeting, where, instead of striking pebbles together in order to obtain light, they throw them at one another's faces.
Fulfil your duties. Never complain. Never exact what is not offered to you, unless it be respect. So long as your husband treats you with respect, at home aswell as in public; so long as he is the thoughtful father of your children, and carefully and industriously attends to his profession or business, respect him and inspire in your children the respect for him, and especially do not make your children the confidant of your grievances; that is your foremost duty.
I cannot say to you: Try to force yourself to love your husband. This is not in your power. But I will say: Be irreproachable, and thus make yourself the superior of your husband. Devote yourself to your family. If you are rich, do with your money all the good that you can. The greatest possession is self-esteem. You can rise so high that the offences committed against you may appear infinitely small. After all, we get in this world the place that we know how to make for ourselves.
Never let the outside public know the details of your private life. Receive your friends and your guests with a smile on your lips. If your husband is a gentleman, he will show you before them the greatest consideration, and if you are a lady you will treat him in a like manner.
If your husband is unable to offer you his love—I mean a lover's love—do not commit the mistake of refusing his friendship, for it is just possible that this man, who has not in him the power to love you as a lover, would still be ready to give his life for you.
He would certainly be still ready to give it for his children,yourchildren. Surely that friendship is worthhaving. Of course, the young wife, who discovers after only a few years of marriage that the dream of love has vanished, is to be pitied, supposing that it has not been through her fault that the dream has had such a short life; but the woman who for twenty or more years has had a faithful lover-husband is conceited and ridiculous beyond measure when she does not almost cheerfully resign herself to the inevitable crisis in matrimony; and if she has children that she takes in her confidence, and thus estranges from their father, her vanity is not very far from criminal. At all events, she deserves the sympathy of no one.
Resign yourself to the inevitable. Let the days of love, happiness, and devotion count in the final reckoning, and, in turning over a new leaf, be sure you bring forward devotion, and soon happiness may have to be added again.
Put on a cheerful face always, and remember that it pays to excite envy, never to excite pity.
There is more joy in heaven, we are told, for one sinner who repents than for a hundred righteous people who keep straight on the narrow ways of salvation.
And, I should add, there must be more joy in hell for one good man who goes wrong than for a hundred sinners who persevere in their wicked ways.
There should be more joy in the heart of a woman for a man who remains in love with her than for a hundred others whose admiration she may obtain.
There are some women who may love a man ever so much, and be loved by him to their hearts' content, who will use all their artillery to bring down strangers to their feet, but who will make little or no effort to look their best for the man who loves them and is devoted to them. For such women their beauty is an altar erected to unknown gods.
Married life would be an everyday bliss and an eternal one if men never thought of doing to or before their wives what they would never dream of doing to or before any ladies of their acquaintance, and, of course,if women did the same; but such is not always, even often, the case. Hence the trouble.
How many men have taken their wives to a ball, women whose radiant beauty and brilliant toilettes have caused the admiration of all men present, and also the envy of many women?
How many men have felt that, if the said wives had made as much preparation for them as they had for all the strangers present at that ball, they could have fallen at their feet and worshipped them?
On returning home, however, Madame has immediately retired to her room, ordered her maid to quickly remove and pack away the lovely attire, and, an hour later, prepared for the night's rest, she appeared before her husband with her hair all prepared for the next day, her hands carefully gloved so that they may be as white as snow—also for the next day—and wrapped up and as inaccessible as a valuable clock that is going to be shipped to the other end of the world.
That is the lot of many men—may I not even say of most husbands? Then a bold husband will venture to make some remarks. He will say, 'Now, my dear, I hear you practise your scales and exercises, but seldom do you treat me to a piece of music, which I only hear when I have guests or we go out. Everyone—at the ball—has admired your beautiful hair and your lovely gown, but for me, all I see is hairpins and curlers and a dressing-gown.'
And Madame will answer more or less sourly, 'Is itbecause I am your wife that I must grow ugly? Do you want my hair to fall over my neck and shoulders to-morrow like weeping willows? Do you want my hands to be red and chappy? Are you sorry I am careful of my clothes and have them put away, well folded in tissue-paper, when I have no need of them?
'Do you reproach me for doing you honour and being at the same time careful? Will you tell me, is there any way to please you? And do you think that, after enjoying herself and receiving compliments during a whole evening, it is very pleasant for a woman to return home and hear nothing but rebuffs, reproaches and the like?'
The poor man feels he is beaten, that he is a brute, and he says nothing more, until one night when it is time to retire, he prepares a surprise for his wife.
'What's all this?' exclaims the wife when she realizes what has happened.
'Nothing, dear,' he replies. 'To tell you the truth, I go hunting to-morrow morning, and I shall have to rise very early. My hunting-boots are new, and in the morning my feet are always a little swollen, so I keep them on to save trouble. You must excuse my spurs, too, dear, but I prefer these, which are fastened to the boots. I shall be most comfortable to-morrow.'
There are qualities which most women admire in men, and there are qualities which practically every man admires in all women; but if you were to ask of a hundred men, 'What is the ideal wife?' and of a hundred women, 'What is the ideal husband?' you would get a hundred opinions all different one from the other.
Quot capita, tot sensus, which, in the case of women, I should like to translate, 'So many pretty heads, so many different opinions.' This, however, is as it should be. Only there remains that terrible problem for every man and woman to solve: Find your ideal if you can, and when you think you have found it, see that you are not disappointed.
I have of late interviewed a good many Parisiennes on the subject, and I will give some of the answers which I have received.
One said to me: 'The ideal husband is the one who devotes his life to his wife, who makes her the first consideration in all his thoughts and acts, who understands that she is the aim of everything which heundertakes, and that he should use all the resources that Nature has placed in his mind and Fortune has put in his hands in order that she may be happy and remain long beautiful.'
I need not say that this was the opinion of a young girl who had only just made her début in society. Nor do I need say that the following came from the lips of a married woman—one, however, whom I guarantee to be in the possession of all the womanly virtues likely to make a husband most satisfied with his lot.
'The ideal husband,' she said, 'is the one who lets his wife alone, who does not interfere with her household duties or any of her little womanly fads, who is not always paying her compliments or besieging her with advice, and who is not always by her side or behind her back, who seldom addresses her reproaches, and never reminds her of what he has done to deserve her gratitude, who is not fussy, fidgety, or a bore of a model of propriety and virtue.
'When I was a young girl I dreamed of matrimony as a sweet state of slavery. Now I shout for liberty—liberty for him and liberty for me. I do not mean to say, of course, that man and wife should live apart and not care one what the other does. No, no; but I firmly believe that we should remain at a respectful distance from the objects which we want to see to advantage and admire.
'A woman should never allow even the most loving and beloved of husbands to be constantly making loveto her. One may suffer from abundance of wealth. A great deal of discretion and a certain amount of respect between married people are sure to secure the duration and the solidity of their affection. Those who live at too close quarters are sure to part one day or the other.'
Here is another, with less philosophy, but a good deal of what I might call paradoxical psychology:
'The ideal husband,' said to me a woman married to a French painter on the road to celebrity, 'is the one who is not a man of genius. Nothing monopolizes a man like a great talent for writing, painting, or even business; he belongs to his muse, his art, or his figures. His thoughts are absorbed, and he has very few, if any, left for the little creature who lives with him, not in the clouds, but by his side on this earth.
'When he returns from his dreams, he throws at her—poor inferior being!—a glance of pity, if not of contempt. My ideal husband is a man who can live for me as I am ready to live for him, and who can do without a mistress, whether that mistress be called Literature, Art, or Commerce. I love great men, great poets, great painters or sculptors, but I would not have a great man for a husband; nay, furthermore, I should like to have a husband jealous of all the great men of my predilection in the world of fiction.'
A piquant little woman, not a bit beautiful, but absolutely charming and the embodiment of amiability and cheerfulness, said to me:
'The ideal husband shall not be a handsome man, but a gentlemanly one, with a keen sense of humour, cheerful, a laughing philosopher, and a man with a magnanimous turn of mind, who would never take advantage of a little trouble in which I might find myself entangled to say to me, "I told you so," but get me out of it quickly.'
Of course, all my fair friends, without exception, have insisted on the ideal husband being indulgent, generous, manly, sincere, loyal, and above middle height. Strange to say that none of them ask him to be handsome, much less insist on it. One of them even went so far as to say:
'A husband should not be handsome. First of all he is never very beautiful, since he is a man. But he might be worse; he might think he is beautiful, and then Heaven help his wife!'
'The ideal husband,' remarked a lady, 'is a man who should never be ridiculous, never make a fool of himself, and never for a moment believe that women took notice of him. A woman's love may survive any defect in her husband, but ridicule never.'
The fact is that words or acts of a man ridiculous enough to make his wife wish she were a mile deep under the floor will lower him so much in her estimation that she will never be able to look up to him again; and no woman has ever been known to drop her love—she sends it up always. I will conclude with the opinion of an American lady:
'The ideal husband should never part with any of his most refined manners in his home, where he should endeavour ever to appear at his best, in dress, language, and behaviour, in the presence of his wife, who is his queen.'
I expected as much from her supreme and magnificent majesty, Mrs. Jonathan, Queen of the United States.
It is said in England that, of all men who occupy high positions in professional life, judges are those who oftenest marry below their station.
Many are even said to have married impossible women, and on these women many amusing stories are related in the smoke-rooms of London clubs—stories which, I have no doubt, are of these non è vero, è ben trovatotype, and as faithful to truth as the stories that are told on the feet of the Chicago women or the intellect of the Boston girls.
However, it must be admitted that fools are not the only men who marry women that are greatly inferior to them in manner, education, and social standing; the cleverest men and the most aristocratic ones have often been known to do the same.
Dukes, marquises, and earls have married chorus-girls and shop-girls; great literary men and artists have married uneducated girls, and have led very happy lives with them. Of course, I pass over the aristocracywho marry among the common people in order to get their coats of arms out of pawn. If they are poor and marry rich girls, you can hardly call this a case ofmésalliance, since the superiority of birth in the man is compensated by the superiority of fortune in the woman.
Of course,mésalliancesappeal to people, because they always suggest marriages for love, and novelists of all countries have worked this theme for all it is worth. In real life they very seldom work well, for the simple reason that matrimony places a man and a woman on absolutely equal footing, and that happiness for them, in the case of amésalliance, is only possible on condition that one goes up to the level of the superior, or the other comes down to the level of the inferior.
Marriages that have the greatest chances of success are those in which the two partners bring the same amount of capital in social position, in education, in fortune, in character, and I will even add in stature and in physical beauty, with perhaps a slight—a very slight—superiority to the credit of the man in all these conditions, except that of beauty, which is an attribute that woman can possess in any degree without making the happiness of her husband and herself run any risk.
Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, in one of her novels, makes a barrister fall in love with a girl who works in the coal-mines of Lancaster (another case of the legal professiongoing wrong). The man has the girl sent to school to learn manners and get educated, then marries her, and all is smooth ever after.
I have heard of this being done in real life with less success. The behaviour of the man in a case like this should create gratitude in the heart of the woman, and gratitude does not engender love. On the contrary, Cupid is a little fellow so fond of his liberty and so wilful that anything that tends to influence him—worse than that, to force him—has on him the contrary effect to that which should be expected.
Yet, I say, it is the only way to bring an uneducated woman to the level of an educated man—before matrimony. After marriage the woman is acknowledged, proclaimed the equal of her husband, and she will stand no hint as to her being inferior to her husband in any way.
If she loves him and is not conceited, any act on his part, however kindly performed, that would suggest to her that she might improve herself in language, behaviour, etc., would cause her unhappiness and even pangs of anguish.
If, on the other hand, she did not love him and was conceited, or even only of an independent character, she would soon give him a piece of her mind on the subject of her improvements, and let him hear the great typical phrase of democracy, 'I'm as good as you.'
DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS
No, no; he must put up with the situation, and make the best of it. In that case men console themselves with the thought that their wives are pretty, or that they are good housekeepers, good cooks. After all, a man gets married to please himself, not for what the world has to say of his wife.
Still, you have to succeed in the world, and if you despise the opinion of the world the world turns its back on you. And you must remember this: however big you are, or you think you are, the earth can go on running its course round the sun without your help.
French and American women have a keen power of observation and native adaptability. Better than any other women in the world, they can soon adapt themselves to new surroundings and new ways, and learn how to talk, walk, dress, and behave like the leading women of any new social circles they may have entered. Witness the American women that are to be seen at the courts of Europe.
However, the experiment of amésallianceis always a dangerous one to make. Nine times out of ten the rabbit will always taste of the cabbage it was brought up on.