spite of the wrath I shall excite in stating this,--much longer than
many lifetimes) to change the nature of men. So do not let us bother
over these abstract points, but accept men as they are, dear,
attractive, selfish darlings! with generous hearts and a quite
remarkable faculty for playing fair in any game. So you must play fair
also, and try to understand the rules and follow them. If the husband
you select has a stronger character than you have, and if he is also
extremely desirable to other women, the only way you will be able to
keep him through all the years to come will be by being invariably
sweet, loving, and gentle to him, so that, no matter what tempers and
caprices he experiences in his encounters with the many others of your
sex who will fling themselves at his head, he will never have a memory
but of love and peace at home. Never mind _what_ he does, supposing you
really love him and want to keep him, this is the only method to use. It
may even seem to bore him at the end of about the first two years, but
continue.
If he is young and handsome and attractive he must have his fling, and
you should let him have whatever tether he requires, while you influence
him to good and beautiful things, and always know and feel certain in
your heart that the intense magnetic force of your love and sweetness
will inevitably draw him back the moment the outside fascination palls.
These preliminary remarks, I dare say, are calculated to provoke the
fiercest argument among many girls; but wait, Caroline, until I have
finished explaining the reasons and dissecting the aspects, keeping in
view our end--common sense and happiness.
You must tell me if these things interest you before next month, when I
will write again. Because now I must end this letter.
Your affectionate Godmother,
E. G.
IV
FEBRUARY, 1913.
I am so glad, my dear Caroline, to hear that you were interested in my
last letter. It is an important subject--marriage--and one I want more
fully to discuss with you. No one accomplishes any rôle successfully
without some preparatory training--and the rôle of a married woman
requires a good deal of thought bestowed upon it before it should be
undertaken.
As I said in my last epistle, the affair is a bargain, in which too
often the modern young people refuse to recognize any of the
responsibilities. Let us, for the sake of our argument, suppose,
Caroline, that you have fallen in love with, and married, what appears
to be a suitable young man in fortune and character. We will pretend
that he is the eldest son of some one of importance, and in his turn one
day will occupy a great position. If you have carefully followed the
advice I have been giving you, you will be so distinguished in
appearance and manner that you ought to be an ornament to your new
station. And you must make your husband feel from the very beginning
that you mean to take the deepest interest in all his tastes and
pursuits: if they are political, that you will endeavor to forward his
interest and understand his aims; if they lie in the country and the
management of his estate, that you mean to fulfil all the duties which
such an existence requires. If he is a soldier, a sailor, a barrister, a
financier--no matter what--this same principle applies, though in the
latter professions you cannot take perhaps such active interest; but you
must show him that at all events you can give him your sympathy and
understanding, and make his home pleasant and agreeable when he returns
to it. If you make it smooth and charming for him you may be as certain
that he will prefer to spend all his spare time with you as that he will
break away immediately if you do not.
All human beings unconsciously in their leisure moments do what they
_like best_. If you find a man in his free hours doing something which
he obviously cannot like, it is because to _accomplish his duty_ is the
thing he _likes best_. Thus, if you bore your husband in his leisure, he
may stay with you for a while from a sense of duty, but he will begin to
make excuses of work to curtail the moments, and he will snatch time
from his real work for his pleasure elsewhere.
Whether you keep your husband’s love and devotion lies almost entirely
with yourself and your own intelligence, and I might say sagacity!
Remember this maxim: “A fool can win the love of a man, but it requires
a woman of _resources_ to keep it”--the difficulty being much greater in
a country like England, where the women are in the majority, than in
another where they have to be fought for, and the men are the more
numerous.
We will suppose that you desire to retain the love and devotion of your
husband, and have not only married him for a home and a place in
society. In this case face the fact that it is always a difficult matter
for a woman to keep a man in love with her when once she belongs to him,
and he has no obstacles to overcome. For man is a hunter naturally, and
when the quarry is obtained his interest in that particular beast wanes,
although the interest in securing by his skill another of the same
species remains as active as ever.
The wise woman realizes all these primitive and deep-seated instincts in
human nature, and adapts herself to them. She recognizes the futility of
trying to make her personal protest effective against what is a
fundamental characteristic of all male animals.
Who, seeing a wall with several gates in it, would be so foolish as to
fling herself against the stones instead of quietly going through one of
the openings, simply because she resented the wall’s being there at all!
And yet this is what numbers--indeed the majority--of women do,
figuratively, in their dealings with men; and so destroy their own
happiness. But I want you to be wiser, Caroline. Realize when you
embark upon matrimony that you will have to play a difficult game, with
the odds all against you, and that it will take every atom of your
intelligence to win it, the prize being continued happiness. You may
reply, “If Charlie requires all this management and thinking over, let
him go! I would not demean myself by pandering to such things.”
And I answer, “Certainly, if to let him go will make you as happy as to
keep him!” But if, on the contrary, it will make you perfectly
miserable, then it will be more prudent to use a little common sense
about it. Ask yourself the question frankly and then settle upon your
course of conduct.
If you decide to try to keep him, attend to your means of attraction.
While you were engaged to him you would not have allowed him to see you
looking ugly or unappetizing for the world--such things are even more
important after you are married. Never under any circumstances let him
have the chance of feeling physically repulsed--for the very first time
he experiences this sensation that will be the beginning of the end of
his being _in love_ with you, although he may go on treating you in a
very kind and friendly way. But if you want to keep him in the blissful
state, attend far more to pleasing his eye and his ear when alone with
him than to pleasing the world when you go out. Let him feel that
whatever admiration you provoke--and the more you do provoke the better
he will love you--still that your most utterly attractive allurements
are reserved as special treats for himself alone. If I were able to give
girls only one sentence of advice as to how to keep their husbands in
love with them, I should choose this one--Never revolt the man’s senses.
For, remember, this particular aspect of affection called being in love
is caused by the senses of both participants being exalted. He is moved
by what he thinks he sees in his beloved, and she likewise; and, if the
realities are far below the mark of his or her imaginary conception of
them, so much the more careful should each one be to keep up the
illusions. Very deep affection can remain when all sense of “being in
love” is over, but it has lost its exquisite aroma of sweetness.
A man will go on being in love with even a stupid woman who never fails
to please his eye and his ear--whereas he will lose all emotion for the
cleverest who revolts either. Grasp this truth, that the personal
attraction in a connection like marriage is of colossal importance, for
the moment that is over the affair will subside into a duty, a calm
friendship, or an armed neutrality. It can no longer be a divine
happiness. So if you can keep this great joy by using a little
intelligence and forethought, how much better to do so! I hope you agree
with me, Caroline?
Remember, all the other women
[Illustration: “_If you want to keep him in the blissful state, attend
to pleasing his eye and his ear when alone with him._”]
your husband will meet will only be showing their most agreeable sides
to him without the handicap of daily intercourse. Remember, also, that,
though he may have the most honorable desire to be faithful to you in
the letter and the spirit, he cannot by his own will suppress or
increase his actual emotion toward you, and if you destroy his ideal of
you it cannot be his fault if his ardor cools. That is one point of
gigantic importance which I want to hammer into your head,
child--whatever a person thinks and feels about you, you yourself are
responsible for. You have given his or her sensibilities that
impression, exactly as when you look in a mirror your reflection is
reproduced.
People complain of being misunderstood, but it is because they
themselves, unconsciously perhaps, have given the cause for
misunderstanding. A girl may say a man is a brute and a false traitor,
because in May he was passionately loving, making every vow to her, but
by October he had cooled, and by December he had become in love with
someone else! Granted that some men have fickle natures and more easily
stray than others, still the actual emotion for a particular person is
not under any human being’s control, only the demonstrations of it. I
must be very explicit about this statement in case you misunderstand me.
I mean that no man or woman can love or unlove at will--(by “love” I am
still meaning all the emotions which are contained in the state called
“being in love”). This state in man or woman is produced, as I said
before, by some attraction in the loved one, just as a needle is
attracted by a magnet. If the magnetic power were to lessen in the
magnet the needle could not prevent itself from falling away from it--or
if another and stronger magnet were placed near the needle it would be
drawn to that. It--the needle--would only be obeying natural laws and
therefore would not be responsible.
Which, then, could you blame--the original magnet or the needle?
Obviously the magnet is responsible.
You may reply. But the magnet did not wish to lessen in attraction;
that and the arrival of the stronger magnet were pure misfortunes and
accidents of fate.
Granted--but this only brings in a third influence--it does not _throw
the blame upon the needle_. So I want you to understand, Caroline, that
if a man ceases to love you it is your own fault--or misfortune--never
his fault; just as, if you cease to love the man, it is his fault or
misfortune, not yours.
These are truths which ninety-nine women out of a hundred do not care to
face. But the wise hundredth, realizing that she is the magnet, tries
her uttermost to keep her magnetic power strong enough to withstand all
misfortune or the attacks of other magnets--that is, if she wishes to
keep the man who is the needle.
And if he leaves her she must ask herself _how she is in fault_. She
must _never blame him_. If she cannot discover that she is in fault at
all, she is then in the position of the first magnet--and it is her
misfortune; but misfortune can be turned into success by intelligence,
and, with skill, a magnet can be recharged.
Now do you clearly understand this argument, Caroline? I hope so,
because I have put it plainly enough to make you conscious of your
personal responsibility in the matter of being able to retain your
husband’s love. So we can get back to the subject of the vital
importance of keeping his senses pleased with you. There are numbers of
girls who at the end of a month of marriage have done, said, and looked
things which they would have died rather than let their fiancés
perceive, hear, or see, and yet who are much astonished and feel
resentful and aggrieved because they begin to reap the harvest of their
own actions in the fact of their husbands showing less love and respect
for them.
How illogical! How foolish!
To please a man after marriage every attraction which lured him into the
bond should be continually kept up to the mark, because there are, then,
the extra foes to fight--the natural hunting instinct in man and the
destroying power of satiety. How could a girl hope to keep her husband
as a lover when she herself had abandoned all the ways of a sweetheart
and had assumed little habits which would be enough to put off any man!
If you have done everything a woman can possibly do to be physically and
mentally desirable to your husband, and yet have failed to keep his
love, you must search more deeply for the reason, and when you have
found it, no matter how the discovery may wound your vanity or
self-esteem, you must use the whole of your wits to remedy its result if
you are unable to eradicate its cause.
He may have idiosyncrasies--watch them and avoid irritating them. He may
have some taste which you do not share, and have shown your antagonism
to. Try to hide this, and if the taste is not a low one try to take an
interest in it. Try always and ever to keep the atmosphere between you
in harmony.
If the lessening of your attraction for him has been engendered by the
arrival of a stronger magnet on the scene, your efforts must be
redoubled to replenish your own magnetic powers. You certainly will not
draw him back to you by making the contrast between yourself and his new
attraction the greater through being disagreeable. If he outrages your
truest feelings, let him see that he has hurt you, but do not reproach
him--not because you may not have just cause to do so, but because
giving way to this outlet for your injured emotions would only defeat
your own end, that of bringing him back to yourself.
You may be perfectly certain that if that aim of your being remains
unchanged, and your love continues strong enough to make your methods
vitally intelligent, you will eventually draw him away from anything on
earth back to the peaceful haven of your tender arms. All this I am
saying presupposing that you are “in love” with the man, and the
greatest desire of your life is to keep his love in return.
But supposing that his actions kill your affection (this, though, is not
so likely to happen as that your actions will damp his--because of that
hunting instinct in man making him more fickle by nature)--but supposing
it does happen that you find yourself utterly disillusioned and
disgusted, then all you can aim at is to obtain peace and dignity in
your home, and at least merit your husband’s respect, and the respect of
all who know you. But this possibility I must leave the discussion of to
another letter; it would be a digression in this one.
The magnet and the needle simile works both ways. If your husband ceases
to draw your affection he will only have himself or his misfortune to
blame--not you. We have been speaking of emotions hitherto, and of their
impossibility of control--and to leave the discussion at that would
open a dangerous door to those feather brains who never, if they can
help it, look at the real meaning of an argument, but adapt it and turn
it to fit their own desires. So I must forcibly state that, although the
actual emotion in its coming or going is not under human control, the
demonstration of it most emphatically is, being entirely a question of
will. A strong will can master any demonstration of emotion, and it is
the duty of either the young husband or wife sternly to curb all vagrant
fancies in themselves, whose encouragement can only bring degradation
and disaster.
I am confining myself now to enlightening you, Caroline, upon your own
responsibilities. If your health should not be good use common sense
and try to improve it--make as light of it as possible, and do not
complain. It is such a temptation to work upon a loved one’s feelings
and secure oceans of sympathy, but often the second or third time you do
so an element of boredom--or, at best, patient bearing of the fret--will
come into his listening to your plaints. If he is ill himself do not
fuss over him, but at the same time make him feel that no mother could
be more tender and thoughtful than you are being for his comfort. Do not
be touchy and easily hurt. Remember he may be thoughtless, but while he
loves you he certainly has no deliberate intention of wounding you. Be
cheerful and gay, and if he is depressed by outside worries show him
you think him capable of overcoming them all. Let your thoughts of him
be always that he is the greatest and best, and the current of them,
vitalized by love, will assist him to become so in fact.
Think of all the young couples that you know. How few of them are really
in love with each other after the first year! They have bartered the
best and most exquisite joy for such poor returns--and they could have
kept their Heaven’s gift if they had only thought carefully over the
things which are likely to destroy it.
I believe you play the piano most charmingly, Caroline--in an easy way
which gives pleasure to everyone. Do not, when you marry, give this up
and let it be relegated into the background, as so many girls do with
their accomplishments. And if your husband should be one of those rich
modern young men who seem to have no sense of balance or responsibility,
but pass their lives rushing from one sport to another, try to curb his
restlessness and teach him that a great position entails great
obligations and that he must justify his ownership of it in the eyes of
the people who now hold the casting vote in their inexperienced hands. I
believe, from the little I know about politics, that I am a
Conservative, Caroline--but, when I see an utter recklessness and
indifference to their nation’s greatness and a wild tearing after
pleasure apparently the only aims of young lives in the upper classes,
it sickens me with contempt and sorrow that they should give the enemy
so good a chance to blaspheme.
And as women by their gentleness, tact, and goodness influence affairs
and governments and countries, through men, a thousand-fold more than
the cleverest suffragettes could influence these things by securing
votes for women--I do implore you, Caroline, when your turn comes to be
the inspiration of some nice young husband, to use your power over him
to make him truly feel the splendor of his inheritance in being an
Anglo-Saxon, and his tremendous obligation to come up to the mark.
Now you will think I am becoming too serious, so I will say good-night,
child.
Your affectionate Godmother,
E. G.
V
MARCH, 1913.
I find I must continue the subject we discussed in the last letter for a
little, Caroline, because, besides the question you have written to ask
me to answer, there are still some remarks I want to make about marriage
which may be for your enlightenment.
You write: “How would it be if the man I were to fall in love with and
marry were to be really fonder of me than I of him? Should I still have
to use such a lot of intelligence to keep him?”
Now, in reply to that, I want you to remember what I said about the
hunting instinct in man. Well, obviously, if he cares more for you than
you do for him, that instinct would still be in a state of excitement;
so that you would have this very powerful factor upon your side to
assist you in keeping your husband’s interest and affection. Marriages
are generally much happier when this is the case, but it cannot be
arranged--it is a question, one might almost say, of luck. Nothing was
ever truer than the French proverb, “Between two lovers there is always
one who kisses and one who holds the cheek.” And if the girl is the one
who holds the cheek she is fortunate indeed. But for some unaccountable
reason, although this often happens during the period of courtship,
after marriage the rôles change, and it will be then that the young
wife will require all her intelligence to keep what she has learned to
appreciate.
And no knowledge of the fact that your husband cares more for you than
you do for him ought to make you lessen your determination to be
attractive to him. To be absolutely unkind or cruel would not have so
alienating an effect as to be unattractive. No woman can count upon her
power if she ceases to charm the man’s senses. Should you be happy
enough to love a little less than your husband, you may feel that all
this analyzing of cause and effect which I have been treating you to
does not altogether apply in your case, but still, if you _are wise_ you
will take to heart most of it, and so hold what you have won.
Supposing you have returned from your honeymoon still mistress of the
situation, and, taking no trouble to please your husband, are just
asserting your own individuality and only consulting your own likes and
dislikes. Remember you have all your lives in front of you, and that
satiety is an ever-present danger. He adores you still--but he will see
you every day, and, if you take no pains to please him, that fact will
militate against a continuance of his adoration, and you may suddenly
realize that he is less eager to worship you--calmer under your
caprices, not so disturbed at your displeasure, and you will know that,
unless you use every art a woman possesses, your power over his
emotions will continue to wane.
There are some weak characters in men who are always ruled by their
wives, but of these I do not speak, because no woman ever really loves
them from the beginning, and you and I, Caroline, are discussing
marriages of love and how to keep the volatile little god an inmate of
your hearth and home.
If a girl has married a real man, there are three things she must not
forget:
That the man is stronger than she is; that the man is freer than she is;
that the man is more open to flattery than she is. And, as he is
stronger, so he will break bonds which are irksome to him more readily.
And, as he is freer, he will have more opportunity to indulge vagrant
desires. And, as he is more open to flattery, so will he be the easier
prey of any other woman who may happen to fancy him.
Thus, Caroline, even if he loves you more than you love him, you cannot
afford with safety to diminish your attractions for him. For, if you do,
it follows logically that he, as the needle, will eventually be no
longer drawn to a magnet whose magnetic force has decreased.
Now I want to discuss the two possibilities which I told you last time
must be for another letter. The first one was, supposing that you find
yourself at the end of the first year
[Illustration: “_Above all, do not be dramatic._”]
or two utterly disillusioned and disgusted--what then is best to be
done? Look the whole situation carefully in the face, and see what roads
will lead to better or worse conditions. Above all, do not be dramatic.
The ineradicable, insatiable dramatic instinct in some women has caused
them, for the pleasure they unconsciously take in a “scene,” to ruin
their own and their husbands’ lives. Men are not dramatic: they do not
“make scenes”--they loathe them; they loathe exhibitions of emotion
which, nine times out of ten, do not occur until some action of their
own provokes them, the action having proved that their interest in their
wives is going off. The wise woman instantly appreciates this point, and
knows that, if she gives way to her, perhaps just, reproaches, she will
be adding another millstone round her own neck in a further weakening of
her attraction for, and influence over, the man. The wise woman makes
quite sure that the matter which has annoyed her is really
important--she banishes it if not, and, if it is, she states her case
quietly and with dignity, so that her husband can answer her without
heat, and give her explanations--or excuses.
She must never forget that the momentary relief and satisfaction of
indulging her anger is but a poor consolation when it has produced
resentment and repulsion in her husband’s mind--even if, as in the case
of our present argument, she herself no longer cares for him. Whatever
the man has done, she ought to say or do nothing which can make him feel
_less respect for herself_ in return.