A woman, sitting behind me on the top of a bus, was explaining to her
companion how to manage husbands. She was a strong-minded person and
very confident on the subject. She had been married fifteen years,
she said, and was satisfied that what she had to learn about taming
the bear was not worth learning. As far as I could gather her main
thesis was that you must not make too much of the bear. We (I speak
as one of the husbands under the scalpel of this formidable woman)
must not be encouraged to think that we were little tin gods. We
must not be allowed to get the idea that our wives were not
independent of us. That was fatal. The more a woman showed that she
could paddle her own canoe the more humble and manageable we became.
I gathered, too, that we had to be humoured and even humbugged. We
were rather like unruly children who needed to have a lollipop
stuffed in our mouth occasionally to keep us quiet and in good
humour. It was quite easy to fool us. Only that morning her husband
wanted to get up to breakfast. "No," said she, "you stay and have
your breakfast comfortably in bed." And he did. "I didn't want him
downstairs getting in the way and keeping me talking about this, that
and the other. I like to have my breakfast in peace."
As she rattled on I seemed to see the whole tribe of husbands
drooping abjectly before her withering exposure. Things which had
been mercifully hidden from me became suddenly clear. That habit of
breakfasting in bed, for example. It was an old habit with me, a
relic of other days, when I went to bed as the dawn was breaking and
the birds were tuning up for a new day. I had continued it with
grave twinges of conscience long after the excuse for it had ceased
to exist. I had felt it was an inexcusable laziness. I had
determined for years to break it. Some day, I had said to myself, I
will stop this hedonish self-indulgence. I will set the household an
example. I will be up with the lark. I will give the family an
agreeable shock. I pictured the delight with which they would hail
my astonishing appearance on that never-to-be-forgotten day when I
came down to breakfast.
Now the whole deceit was as plain as a pikestaff. Now I understood,
thanks to that masterful voice behind me, why my feeble protests,
periodically uttered, against having my breakfast in bed had been so
kindly repulsed. "Oh no, stay where you are. It's no trouble." And
I had stayed, listening to the chirping of the sparrows, reading my
book, and taking my tea and toast in comfortable ease. And now I
knew the humiliating truth. It was all a blind. I was not
wanted--that was the plain English of it. I was given my breakfast
in bed in order that I might be kept out of the way. It was not a
beautiful act of affectionate thoughtfulness, but an artful policy, a
method of getting rid of a domestic nuisance under the disguise of
generous indulgence. I own my blood boiled. Never again, I said.
Meanwhile, the astounding revelation of the way in which the innocent
tribe of husbands was chastened and disciplined proceeded. I learned
how we were most effectually fleeced and cozened. You feed the brute
first. If you want something particular, a new hat or a sealskin
jacket, something that you would not get out of us while we were
fierce and hungry, you raise the subject when we are well fed, when
the hard lineaments of our august countenance relax and the
comforting juices of the body begin to spread a benign influence over
our emotions. Then we fall. I learned, too, that in the philosophy
of this terrific woman a little judicious jealousy was mixed with the
diabolical potion with which we were beguiled. "Nothing wrong, of
course, my dear, but it does them no harm to know that we are not
enslaved, and that there are other fish in the sea beside themselves."
As I heard the disclosure of the net of intrigue with which we were
enveloped I felt that something must be done about it. There must be
an exposure. The plot must be shown up. The scales must be lifted
from the eyes of the blind and credulous victims who sit passively
while their doom is woven about them. But this was only the prelude.
There must be a crusade. We must have a Husbands' Defence League,
with a slogan, "Down with Delilah," and a banner, illuminated by
exclusively masculine hands, bearing the portrait of our patron
saint, the estimable John Knox, author of that famous and splendid
treatise (which I have not yet read) entitled _First Blast of the
Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_. That, said I, was
the stuff to give them. Brave old John, the foe of Bloody Mary,
hated of Elizabeth, the scourge of the Queen of Scots. Three queens,
all of them women and all of them his enemies. Glorious old John!
Meanwhile there must be action at once. My eyes had been opened to
the sinister meaning of breakfast in bed. I would deal with that
forthwith. I would open my campaign without a moment's delay.
To-morrow morning I would certainly get up to breakfast. I would
not, of course, give the least hint of the enormous meaning of the
act. I would simply get up, just as naturally and unostentatiously
as if I were a regular getter-up. I would stroll down negligently,
perhaps whistling a bar or two of some familiar air in an
absent-minded way that would suggest that I had been doing this sort
of thing all my life. If there were comments--as there would be--I
would turn them aside with an artful jest. I would not disclose my
hand. That would be fatal until I had got my Husbands' Defence
League in motion. Then I would open my batteries like thunder. Then
the Monstrous Regiment of Women would know the tremendous storm that
is foreshadowed when I go down to breakfast to-morrow morning....
Grand old John! I shall read your treatise to-night (perhaps). I
shall think of you to-morrow when I throw off the coverlet of the
sluggard and begin the first skirmish of the campaign. I will not be
unworthy of you, old John. There shall be heard in the land again
the blast of your trumpet and fear shall invade the heart of Delilah.