1. REVERENCE YOUR HUSBAND.--He sustains by God's order a position of
dignity as head of a family, head of the woman. Any breaking down
of this order indicates a mistake in the union, or a digression from
duty.
2. LOVE HIM.--A wife loves as naturally as the sun shines. Love is
your best weapon. You conquered him with that in the first place. You
can reconquer by the same means.
3. DO NOT CONCEAL YOUR LOVE FROM HIM.--If he is crowded with care, and
too busy to seem to heed your love, you need to give all the greater
attention to securing his knowledge of your love. If you intermit he
will settle down into a hard, cold life with increased rapidity. Your
example will keep the light on his conviction. The more he neglects
the fire on the hearth, the more carefully must you feed and guard
it. It must not be allowed to go out. Once out you must sit ever in
darkness and in the cold.
4. CULTIVATE THE MODESTY AND DELICACY OF YOUR YOUTH.--The relations
and familiarity of wedded life may seem to tone down the sensitive
and retiring instincts of girlhood, but nothing can compensate for the
loss of these. However, much men may admire the public performance of
gifted women, they do not desire that boldness and dash in a wife.
The holy blush of a maiden's modesty is more powerful in hallowing and
governing a home than the heaviest armament that ever a warrior bore.
5. CULTIVATE PERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS.--This means the storing of your
mind with a knowledge of passing events, and with a good idea of the
world's general advance. If you read nothing, and make no effort to
make yourself attractive, you will soon sink down into a dull hack of
stupidity. If your husband never hears from you any words of wisdom,
or of common information, he will soon hear nothing from you. Dress
and gossips soon wear out. If your memory is weak, so that it hardly
seems worth while to read, that is additional reason for reading.
[Illustration: TALKING BEFORE MARRIAGE.]
6. CULTIVATE PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS.--When you were encouraging the
attentions of him whom you now call husband, you did not neglect any
item of dress or appearance that could help you. Your hair was always
in perfect training. You never greeted him with a ragged or untidy
dress or soiled hands. It is true that your "market is made," but you
cannot afford to have it "broken." Cleanliness and good taste will
attract now as they did formerly. Keep yourself at your best. Make
the most of physical endowments. Neatness and order break the power of
poverty.
7. STUDY YOUR HUSBAND'S CHARACTER.--He has his peculiarities. He has
no right to many of them, and you need to know them; thus you can
avoid many hours of friction. The good pilot steers around the sunken
rocks that lie in the channel. The engineer may remove them, not the
pilot. You are more pilot than engineer. Consult his tastes. It is
more important to your home, that you should please him than anybody
else.
8. PRACTICE ECONOMY.--Many families are cast out of peace into
grumbling and discord by being compelled to fight against poverty.
When there are no great distresses to be endured or accounted for,
complaint and fault-finding are not so often evoked. Keep your husband
free from the annoyance of disappointed creditors, and he will be more
apt to keep free from annoying you. To toil hard for bread, to fight
the wolf from the door, to resist impatient creditors, to struggle
against complaining pride at home, is too much to ask of one man. A
crust that is your own is a feast, while a feast that is purloined
from unwilling creditors if a famine.
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