TO HUSBANDS
As you stand by your young bride when you are married, so stand by her ever afterwards.
A good wife is the workmanship of a good husband.
I wish every husband would copy into his memorandum book this sentence, from a recently published work: “Women must be constituted very differently from men. A word said, a line written, and we are happy; omitted, our hearts ache, as if for a great misfortune. Men cannot feel it, or guess at it; if they did, the most careless of them would be slow to wound us so.
The grave hides many a heart which has been stung to death, because one who might after all, have loved it after a certain careless fashion, was deaf, dumb and blind to the truth in the sentence we have just quoted, or if not, was at least restive and impatient with regard to it. Many men, marrying late in life, being accustomed only to take care of themselves, and that in the most erratic, rambling, exciting fashion, eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, whenever their fancy, or good cheer and amusement, questionable or unquestionable, prompted, come at last, when they get tired of this, with their selfish habits fixed as fate to—matrimony. For awhile it is novelty. Shortly, it is strange as irksome, this always being obliged to consider the comfort and happiness of another. To have something always hanging on the arm, which used to swing free, or at most, but twirl a cane. Then they think their duty done if they provide food and clothing, and refrain (possibly) from harsh words. Ah—is it? Listen to that sigh as you close the door. Watch the gradual fading of the eye, the paling of the cheek, not from age—she should he yet young—but that gnawing pain at the heart, born of the settled conviction that the great hungry craving of her soul, as far as you are concerned, must go forever unsatisfied. God help such wives, and keep them from attempting to slake their soul’s thirst at poisoned fountains.
Think you, her husband, how little a kind word, a smile, a caress to you, how much to her. If you call these things “childish,” and “beneath your notice,” then you should never have married. There are men who should remain forever single. You are one. You have no right to require of a woman her health, strength, time, and devotion, to mock her with this shadowy, unsatisfying return. A new bonnet., a dress, a shawl, a watch, anything, everything but what a true woman’s heart must crave—sympathy, appreciation, love, She may be rich in everything else, but if she is poor in these, and is a good woman, she had better die.
There are hard, unloving, cold monstrosities of women (rare exceptions,) who neither require love or know how to give it. We are not speaking of these. That big-hearted, loving, noble men have occasionally been thrown away upon such, does not disprove what we have been saying. But even a man thus situated has greatly the advantage of a woman in a similar position, because, over the needle, a woman may think herself into an insane asylum, while the active out door turmoil of business life is at least a sometime reprieve to him.
Do you ask me, “Are there no happy wives?” God he praised yes, and glorious, loveable husbands, too, who know how to treat a woman, and would have her neither fool nor drudge. Almost every wife would be a good and happy wife were she only loved enough. Let husbands, present and prospective, think of this.
Show love for your wife and your admiration of her, not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her fan; not, though you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon her; not in making yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased with her foibles or follies or faults; but show them by acts of real goodness toward her; prove, by unequivocal deeds, the high value you set on her health, and life, and peace of mind; let your praise of her go to the full extent of her deserts, but it be consistent with truth and with sense, and such as to convince her of your sincerity. He who is the flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindliest appellation that her Christian name affords is the best you can use, especially before faces. An everlasting “My dear” ‘is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love that makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his rest by night, endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or health of his wife demand it. Let your deeds, and not your words, carry to her heart a daily and hourly confirmation of the fact, that you value her health, and life, and happiness beyond all other things in the world; and let this be manifest to her, particularly at those times when life is always more or less in danger.
Walking the other day with a valued friend who had been confined a week or two by sickness to his room, he remarked - that a husband might learn a good lesson by being confined occasionally to his house, by having an opportunity of witnessing the cares and never-ending toils of his wife, whose burden and duties and patient endurance he might never have otherwise understood. There is a great deal in this thought. Men, especially young men, are called by their business during the day mostly away from home, returning only at the hours for meals, and as they then see nearly the same routine of duty, they begin to think that it is their own lot to perform all the drudgery, and to be exercised with all the weight of care and responsibility. But such a man has a very wrong view of the case; he needs an opportunity for more extended observation, and it is perhaps for this very reason that a kind Providence arrests him by sickness, that he may learn in pain what he would fail to observe in health. The fact is, men often lose their interest in their homes by the neglect to make their homes interesting and pleasant. It should never be forgotten that the wife has her rights—as sacred after marriage as before—and a good husband’s devotion to his wife after marriage, will concede to her quite a much attention as his gallantry did before. If it is otherwise, he most generally is at fault.
It not unfrequently happens that married men, after having been away from home the live-long day, during which the wife has toiled at her duties, go at evening again to some place of amusement and leave her to toil on alone, uncheered and unhappy. How often it happens that her kindest offices pass unobserved and unrewarded even by a smile, and her best efforts are condemned by the fault-finding husband. How often it happens, even when the evening is spent at home, that it is employed in silent reading, or some other way that does not recognize the wife’s right to share in the enjoyment even of the fireside.
Look, ye husbands, a moment, and remember what your wife was when you took her, not from compulsion, but from your- own choice— a choice based, probably, on what you then considered her superiority to all others. She was young, perhaps the idol of a happy home; she was gay and blithe as the lark, and the brothers and sisters at her father’s fireside cherished her as an object of endearment. Yet she left all to join her destiny with yours; to make your home happy, and do all that woman’s love could prompt and woman’s ingenuity devise, to meet your wishes, to lighten the burdens which might press upon you in your pilgrimage. She, of course, had her expectations too. She could not entertain feelings which promise so much, without forming some idea of reciprocation on your part, and she did expect you would after marriage perform those kind offices of which you were so lavish in the days of betrothment. She became your wife left her own home for yours; burst asunder, as it were, the bands of love which had bound her to her father’s fireside, and sought no other boon than your affections: left, it may be, the care and delicacy of a home of indulgence, and now what must be her feelings, if she gradually awakes to the consciousness that you love her less than before; that your evenings are spent abroad; that you only come home at all to satisfy the demand of your hunger, and to find a resting place for your head when weary, or a nurse for your sick chamber when diseased?
Why did she leave the bright hearth of her youthful days? Why did you ask her to give up the enjoyments of a happy home? Was it simply to conduce to your own comfort? Or was there some understanding that she was to be made happy in her connection with the man she dared to love?
Nor is it a sufficient answer, that you reply that you give her a home, that you feed and clothe her. You do this for your help; you would do it for any indifferent housekeeper. She is your wife, and unless you attend to her wants, and in some way answer the reasonable expectations you raised by your attentions before marriage, you need not wonder if she is dejected, and her heart sink into insensibility : but if this be so, think well who is the cause of it. We repeat, very few women make indifferent wives, whose feelings have not met with some outward shock, by the indifference or thoughtlessness of their husbands. It is our candid opinion that a large majority of the instances of domestic misery, the man is the aggressor.
Be patient. You have great trials and perplexities in your business with the world, but do not carry to your home a clouded or contracted brow. Your wife may have many trials, which, though of less magnitude, may have been as hard to bear. A kind, conciliating word, a tender look, will do wonders in chasing from her brow all clouds of gloom. You encounter your difficulties in the open air, fanned by heaven’s cool breezes; but pour wife is often shut in from these healthful influences, and her health fails, and her spirits lose their elasticity. But Oh! Bear with her; she has trials and sorrows to which you are a stranger, but which your tenderness can deprive of all their anguish. Notice kindly her little attentions and efforts to promote your comfort. Do not take them all as a matter of course, and pass them by, at the same time being very sure to observe any omission of what you may consider due to you. Do not treat her with indifference, if you would not sear and palsy her heart, which, watered by kindness, would, to the latest day of your existence, throb with sincere and constant affection. Sometimes yield your wishes to her. She has preferences as strong as you, and it may be just as trying to yield her choice as to you. Do you find it hard to yield sometimes? Think you it is not difficult for her to give up always? If you never yield to her wishes, there is danger that she will think you are selfish and care only for yourself, and with such feelings she can not love as she might. Again, show yourself manly, so that your wife can look up to you and feel that you will act nobly, and that she can confide in your judgment as a man.
Talk to your wife freely about your affairs. Let her understand exactly your condition. Tell her of your difficulties, of your embarrassments, and of your plans for extricating yourself from the entanglements in which you are involved. My word for it, you will get help in nine cases out of ten. Women have quick perceptions. They reach conclusions by a nearer way than reasoning, a get at the solution of a difficult question long before your slow moving thoughts bring you near enough for accurate observation. Tell your wife, then, when in trouble, all about your affairs! Keep nothing back. The better she understands the matter, the clearer will be her perceptions.