The Preliminary precepts, by which science has been enabled at this
point to put weapons into the hand of a husband, are few in number; it
is not of so much importance to know whether he will be vanquished, as
to examine whether he can offer any resistance in the conflict.
Meanwhile, we will set up here certain beacons to light up the arena
where a husband is soon to find himself, in alliance with religion and
law, engaged single-handed in a contest with his wife, who is supported
by her native craft and the whole usages of society as her allies.
LXXXII.
Anything may be expected and anything may be supposed of a woman who is
in love.
LXXXIII.
The actions of a woman who intends to deceive her husband are almost
always the result of study, but never dictated by reason.
LXXXIV. The greater number of women advance like the fleas, by erratic
leaps and bounds, They owe their escape to the height or depth of their
first ideas, and any interruption of their plans rather favors their
execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy
for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will
end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre.
LXXXV.
A husband should never allow himself to address a single disparaging
remark to his wife, in presence of a third party.
LXXXVI. The moment a wife decides to break her marriage vow she reckons
her husband as everything or nothing. All defensive operations must
start from this proposition.
LXXXVII. The life of a woman is either of the head, of the heart, or of
passion. When a woman reaches the age to form an estimate of life, her
husband ought to find out whether the primary cause of her intended
infidelity proceeds from vanity, from sentiment or from temperament.
Temperament may be remedied like disease; sentiment is something in
which the husband may find great opportunities of success; but vanity
is incurable. A woman whose life is of the head may be a terrible
scourge. She combines the faults of a passionate woman with those of
the tender-hearted woman, without having their palliations. She is
destitute alike of pity, love, virtue or sex.
LXXXVIII. A woman whose life is of the head will strive to inspire her
husband with indifference; the woman whose life is of the heart, with
hatred; the passionate woman, with disgust.
LXXXIX.
A husband never loses anything by appearing to believe in the fidelity
of his wife, by preserving an air of patience and by keeping silence.
Silence especially troubles a woman amazingly.
XC. To show himself aware of the passion of his wife is the mark of a
fool; but to affect ignorance of all proves that a man has sense, and
this is in fact the only attitude to take. We are taught, moreover,
that everybody in France is sensible.
XCI. The rock most to be avoided is ridicule.—“At least, let us be
affectionate in public,” ought to be the maxim of a married
establishment. For both the married couple to lose honor, esteem,
consideration, respect and all that is worth living for in society, is
to become a nonentity.
These axioms relate to the contest alone. As for the catastrophe,
others will be needed for that.
We have called this crisis _Civil War_ for two reasons; never was a war
more really intestine and at the same time so polite as this war. But
in what point and in what manner does this fatal war break out? You do
not believe that your wife will call out regiments and sound the
trumpet, do you? She will, perhaps, have a commanding officer, but that
is all. And this feeble army corps will be sufficient to destroy the
peace of your establishment.
“You forbid me to see the people that I like!” is an exordium which has
served for a manifesto in most homes. This phrase, with all the ideas
that are concomitant, is oftenest employed by vain and artificial
women.
The most usual manifesto is that which is proclaimed in the conjugal
bed, the principal theatre of war. This subject will be treated in
detail in the Meditation entitled: _Of Various Weapons_, in the
paragraph, _Of Modesty in its Connection with Marriage_.
Certain women of a lymphatic temperament will pretend to have the
spleen and will even feign death, if they can only gain thereby the
benefit of a secret divorce.
But most of them owe their independence to the execution of a plan,
whose effect upon the majority of husbands is unfailing and whose
perfidies we will now reveal.
One of the greatest of human errors springs from the belief that our
honor and our reputation are founded upon our actions, or result from
the approbation which the general conscience bestows upon on conduct. A
man who lives in the world is born to be a slave to public opinion. Now
a private man in France has less opportunity of influencing the world
than his wife, although he has ample occasion for ridiculing it. Women
possess to a marvelous degree the art of giving color by specious
arguments to the recriminations in which they indulge. They never set
up any defence, excepting when they are in the wrong, and in this
proceeding they are pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose arguments by
precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain
victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable
penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she
herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a
husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards
are terror-stricken at the conflagration.
As a general thing, all women league themselves against a married man
who is accused of tyranny; for a secret tie unites them all, as it
unites all priests of the same religion. They hate each other, yet
shield each other. You can never gain over more than one of them; and
yet this act of seduction would be a triumph for your wife.
You are, therefore, outlawed from the feminine kingdom. You see
ironical smiles on every lip, you meet an epigram in every answer.
These clever creatures force their daggers and amuse themselves by
sculpturing the handle before dealing you a graceful blow.
The treacherous art of reservation, the tricks of silence, the malice
of suppositions, the pretended good nature of an inquiry, all these
arts are employed against you. A man who undertakes to subjugate his
wife is an example too dangerous to escape destruction from them, for
will not his conduct call up against them the satire of every husband?
Moreover, all of them will attack you, either by bitter witticisms, or
by serious arguments, or by the hackneyed maxims of gallantry. A swarm
of celibates will support all their sallies and you will be assailed
and persecuted as an original, a tyrant, a bad bed-fellow, an eccentric
man, a man not to be trusted.
Your wife will defend you like the bear in the fable of La Fontaine;
she will throw paving stones at your head to drive away the flies that
alight on it. She will tell you in the evening all the things that have
been said about you, and will ask an explanation of acts which you
never committed, and of words which you never said. She professes to
have justified you for faults of which you are innocent; she has
boasted of a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear you
of the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty. The deafening
rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywhere with its
obtrusive din. Your darling will stun you, will torture you, meanwhile
arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married life. She
will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at
home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you detest her
merriment when you are moody. Your two faces will present a perpetual
contrast.
Very few men have sufficient force of mind not to succumb to this
preliminary comedy, which is always cleverly played, and resembles the
_hourra_ raised by the Cossacks, as they advance to battle. Many
husbands become irritated and fall into irreparable mistakes. Others
abandon their wives. And, indeed, even those of superior intelligence
do not know how to get hold of the enchanted ring, by which to dispel
this feminine phantasmagoria.
Two-thirds of such women are enabled to win their independence by this
single manoeuvre, which is no more than a review of their forces. In
this case the war is soon ended.
But a strong man who courageously keeps cool throughout this first
assault will find much amusement in laying bare to his wife, in a light
and bantering way, the secret feelings which make her thus behave, in
following her step by step through the labyrinth which she treads, and
telling her in answer to her every remark, that she is false to
herself, while he preserves throughout a tone of pleasantry and never
becomes excited.
Meanwhile war is declared, and if her husband has not been dazzled by
these first fireworks, a woman has yet many other resources for
securing her triumph; and these it is the purpose of the following
Meditations to discover.