19. DO NOT MARRY THE WRONG OBJECT.--Themistocles said he would rather marry
his daughter to a man without {177} money than to money without a man. It
is well to have both. It is fatal to have neither.
20. DEMAND A JUST RETURN.--You give virtue and purity, and gentleness and
integrity. You have a right to demand the same in return. Duty requires it.
21. REQUIRE BRAINS.--Culture is good, but will not be transmitted. Brain
power may be.
22. STUDY PAST RELATIONSHIP.--The good daughter and sister makes a good
wife. The good son and brother makes a good husband.
23. NEVER MARRY AS A MISSIONARY DEED.--If one needs saving from bad habits
he is not suitable for you.
24. MARRIAGE IS A SURE AND SPECIFIC REMEDY for all the ills known as
seminal losses. As right eating cures a sick stomach and right breathing
diseased lungs, so the right use of the sexual organs will bring relief and
restoration. Many men who have been sufferers from indiscretions of youth,
have married, and were soon cured of spermatorrhoea and other complications
which accompanied it.
25. A GOOD, LONG COURTSHIP will often cure many difficulties or ills of the
sexual organs. O. S. Fowler says: "See each other often spend many pleasant
hours together," have many walks and talks, think of each other while
absent, write many love letters, be inspired to many love feelings and acts
towards each other, and exercise your sexuality in a thousand forms ten
thousand times, every one of which tones up and thereby recuperates this
very element now dilapidated. When you have courted long enough to marry,
you will be sufficiently restored to be reimproved by it. Come,
UP AND AT IT.--Dress up, spruce up, and be on the alert. Don't wait too
long to get one much more perfect than you are; but settle on some one
soon. Remember that your unsexed state renders you over-dainty, and easily
disgusted. So contemplate only their lovable qualities.
26. PURITY OF PURPOSE.--Court with a pure and loyal purpose, and when
thoroughly convinced that the disposition of other difficulties are in the
way of a happy marriage life, then _honorably_ discuss it and honorably
treat each other in the settlement.
27. DO NOT TRIFLE with the feelings or affections of each other. It is a
sin that will curse you all the days of your life.
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{178}
Women Who Make the Best Wives.
1. CONSCIOUS OF THE DUTIES OF HER SEX.--A woman conscious of the duties of
her sex, one who unflinchingly discharges the duties allotted to her by
nature, would no doubt make a good wife.
2. GOOD WIVES AND MOTHERS.--The good wives and mothers are the women who
believe in the sisterhood of women as well as in the brotherhood of men.
The highest exponent of this type seeks to make her home something more
than an abode where children are fed, clothed and taught the catechism. The
State has taken her children into politics by making their education a
function of politicians. The good wife and homemaker says to her children,
"Where thou goest, I will go." She puts off her own inclinations to ease
and selfishness. She studies the men who propose to educate her children;
she exhorts mothers to sit beside fathers on the school-board; she will
even herself accept such thankless office in the interests of the helpless
youth of the schools who need a mother's as well as a father's and a
teacher's care in this field of politics.
3. A BUSY WOMAN.--As to whether a busy woman, that is, a woman who labors
for mankind in the world outside her home,--whether such an one can also be
a good housekeeper, and care for her children, and make a real "Home, Sweet
Home!" with all the comforts by way of variation, why! I am ready, as the
result of years practical experience as a busy woman, to assert that women
of affairs can also be women of true domestic tastes and habits.
4. BRAINY ENOUGH.--What kind of women make the best wives? The woman who is
brainy enough to be a companion, wise enough to be a counsellor, skilled
enough in the domestic virtues to be a good housekeeper, and loving enough
to guide in true paths the children with whom the home may be blessed.
5. FOUND THE RIGHT HUSBAND.--The best wife is the woman who has found the
right husband, a husband who understands her. A man will have the best wife
when he rates that wife as queen among women. Of all women she should
always be to him the dearest. This sort of man will not only praise the
dishes made by his wife, but will actually eat them.
[Illustration: PUNISHMENT OF WIFE BEATERS IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE EARLY
DAYS.]
6. BANK ACCOUNT.--He will allow his life-companion a bank account, and will
exact no itemized bill at the end of the month. Above all, he will pay the
Easter bonnet bill without a word, never bring a friend to dinner without
first telephoning home,--short, he will comprehend that the {180} woman who
makes the best wife is the woman whom, by his indulgence of her ways and
whims, he makes the best wife. So after all, good husbands have the most to
do with making good wives.
7. BEST HOME MAKER.--A woman to be the best home maker needs to be devoid
of intensive "nerves." She must be neat and systematic, but not too neat,
lest she destroy the comfort she endeavors to create. She must be
distinctly amiable, while firm. She should have no "career," or desire for
a career, if she would fill to perfection the home sphere. She must be
affectionate, sympathetic and patient, and fully appreciative of the worth
and dignity of her sphere.
8. KNOW NOTHING WHATSOEVER ABOUT COOKING OR SEWING OR HOUSEKEEPING.--I am
inclined to make my answer to this question somewhat concise, after the
manner of a text without the sermon. Like this: To be the "best wife"
depends upon three things: first, an abiding faith with God; second, duty
lovingly discharged as daughter, wife and mother; third, self-improvement,
mentally, physically, spiritually. With this as a text and as a glittering
generality, let me touch upon one or two practical essentials. In the
course of every week it is my privilege to meet hundreds of young
women,--prospective wives. I am astonished to find that many of these know
nothing whatsoever about cooking or sewing or housekeeping. Now, if a woman
cannot broil a beefsteak, nor boil the coffee when it is necessary, if she
cannot mend the linen, nor patch a coat, if she cannot make a bed, order
the dinner, create a lamp-shade, ventilate the house, nor do anything
practical in the way of making home actually a home, how can she expect to
make even a good wife, not to speak of a better or best wife? I need not
continue this sermon. Wise girls will understand.
9. THE BEST KEEPER OF HOME.--As to who is the best keeper of this
transition home, memory pictures to me a woman grown white under the old
slavery, still bound by it, in that little-out-of-the-way Kansas town, but
never so bound that she could not put aside household tasks, at any time,
for social intercourse, for religious conversation, for correspondence, for
reading, and, above all, for making everyone who came near her feel that
her home was the expression of herself, a place for rest, study, and the
cultivation of affection. She did not exist for her walls, her carpets, her
furniture; they existed for her and all who came to her. She considered
herself the equal of all; and everyone else thought her the superior of
all.
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{181}
Adaptation, Conjugal Affection, and Fatal Errors.
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