In my opinion, husbands and wives should arrange their lives to get some vacation time alone together. With even the best intentions the duties and responsibilities of life close in on one, tend to take some of the bloom off the rose. A week, a month if possible, alone together can help to re-establish vitality and meaning in a marriage.
The fact that a man has stayed with a woman despite her frigidity and the problems it causes is a testament to the abiding love he has for her. If he will forget his old despair now that his wife has taken responsibility in the relationship, call on his real manhood to reassert itself in helping her to her goal, his rewards can be as bounteous as femininity can bestow.
Chapter 19
THE LORE OF LOVE
In this book, as you have noted, I have taken a firm stand against any mechanical approach to love or love-making. This represents the psychiatric view of love and is based on the premise that frigidity is psychological in nature and that the resolution of it must be therefore a psychological one.
The mechanical approach is based on the premise that love-making is an art or even a science that can be learned, as the piano or chemistry can be learned. From the psychiatric view the so-called art of love is instinctual. The perfectly free person, if one can be imagined, would, if he loved and were loved in return, soon become a sophisticated practitioner of this art with the barest of preparation.
I recall an anecdote that illustrates this point. It was told to me by a sociologist who was conducting a survey of married couples in an effort to find the correlation between premarital advice and sexual happiness. While questioning one healthy couple whose marriage was obviously happy, he asked the husband:
“And did your parents give you any advice?”
“Yes.”
“Which parent?”
“My father.”