[II]
SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE TO HUSBANDS AND WIVES
‘One doesn’t want a lot of fine sentiments in married life—they don’t work.’ —W. Somerset Maugham.
The most valuable piece of advice it is possible to give a couple starting on the ‘long and straight and dusty road’ of matrimony is: ‘Blessed are they who expect little.’ The next best is ‘Strive to realise your ideal, but accept defeat philosophically.’ It is difficult to live happily with a person who has a very high ideal of us; somehow it creates in us an unholy longing to do our worst. Miranda often says to me: ‘The reason Lysander and I are so perfectly happy is because we never mind showing our worst side to each other, we never feel we need pretend to be better than we are.’ Mark this, Bride and Bridegroom; remember a pedestal is a very uncomfortable place to settle on, and don’t assign this uncomfortable elevation to your life’s partner. More marriages have been ruined by one expecting too much of the other than by any vice or failing.
On the other hand, at the risk of being tedious, I must repeat that the most essential thing in Marriage is respect. It is above love, above compatibility, above even the priceless sense of humour. Respect will hold the tottering edifice of matrimony together when passion is dead and even love has faded. Respect will make even the ‘appalling intimacy’ endurable, and will bring one through the most trying disagreements, with no bruise on the soul, whatever wounds there may be in the heart. Therefore, Bride and Bridegroom, cultivate respect between you at all costs and, men and women, never never marry anyone you don’t really respect, however passionately you may love. I believe one can be fairly happy in marriage without love, once the ardours and madness of extreme youth have passed. Without respect one can never be anything but wretched.
‘There is always one who loves and one who is beloved.’ If you find you are the one who loves, remember—it is the better part, especially for a woman. Don’t weary your companion with constant claims, with scenes and reproaches, tears and prayers, it will serve you no purpose, and probably only alienate the beloved from you. And, while on the subject of tears, let me urgently warn all wives against giving way to this natural feminine weakness. The sensible, hard-headed, athletic girls of to-day as a rule scorn to do so; but after marriage occasions for weeping occur that these self-reliant young spinsters never dream of. But the old idea that tears prevailed against a man, and served to soften the harder male heart, is entirely exploded; and, if women only realised it, tears distil a poison that acts as a fateful irritant to love and often causes its death. Just at first, when he is quite young and in the height of his ardour, tears may influence a man, but not for long, and very seldom after marriage. They frequently gain their end, however, as exceptionally tender-hearted men often so dread tears that they immediately concede the point at issue on the appearance of this danger-signal. But their irritation is none the less, and they often end in disliking the woman who has traded on their gentleness, and taken what they consider is an unfair advantage of them. The wife who weeps perpetually, whenever things go wrong, does not command anyone’s respect or sympathy, and generally drives her husband to seek the society of other women. Men detest a sad face in their home—other than their own, that is. If they are ever miserable, they feel entitled to let themselves go, but their wives must not, or when they do, it must certainly not take the form of tears. The brilliant anonymous author of The Truth about Man advises women to remember that men ‘must never be contradicted, reproached, or censured.’ To this I would add emphatically that he must never on any account be cried at.
Is it necessary to advocate the cultivation of the most perfect courtesy between you? Not at first possibly, but it certainly will be. The time may even come when Perseus may raise his voice and roar out his disapproval of Persephone. A certain type of man always shouts when annoyed, not at his friends or clients of course; merely to his clerks and his servants and his wife and the people who are afraid of him. This was a nasty habit of our grandfathers—modern wives are hardly meek enough to stand much of it. However, if Perseus by some freak of atavism ever should so far forget himself in this way, Persephone will find the Biblical soft answer more efficacious than the loudest returning volume of sound. To speak in an exaggeratedly gentle voice always shames the shouter of either sex into silence.
Courtesy is more necessary between husband and wife than in any other relation in life. A great deal of bitterness would be saved if this were studiously remembered. Nothing is more painful than to hear a married couple being rude to one another, and the claims of courtesy would prevent all sorts of remarks that belong to the category of the better-left-unsaid. Women, especially, have sometimes a most objectionable habit of hurling home-truths at their husband’s head whenever temper runs a little high; and most men are sensitive enough under their shield of cultivated indifference to resent this acutely, and remember stinging sentences of this kind for years. The fact that they are generally pointedly true does not make them less objectionable. Some wives who are in reality devoted to their husbands, nevertheless make a point of invariably belittling them in private and public, and, though he would rarely admit it, this takes the heart out of a man more than one unversed in the hearts of men could possibly believe. The truth is, men like admiration and praise just as much as women do, though it is part of their strange code to conceal this. They resent a snub just as bitterly as a woman does; why shouldn’t they?
And while we are on this subject, let me whisper to Persephone what a wonderfully soothing effect a little judicious flattery has on the race of husbands, and how smoothly it makes the marital wheels go round. I don’t mean false, blatant, absurd flattery, such as men often bestow on us when desirous to please, not realising that compliments laid on with a trowel are an insult to one’s intelligence. Nothing of that kind, of course, but delicate, subtle, loving flattery. An attitude of gentle admiration toward your Perseus, subdued a little possibly for public use, but none the less markedly appreciative, will not only endear you more to him than any protestation of your love could do, but will have an excellent effect on him mentally and morally. Just as you always feel dazzling when in company of people who admire you and always talk brilliantly when with those who think you clever, similarly Perseus will be spurred on by your admiration (real or assumed) to try to justify it.
The same thing applies to you, gallant Perseus. A compliment to your Persephone’s bright eyes, a word of awed adulation for her new hat, or of praise for her conduct as a hostess will not only make her absurdly happy but will materially increase your capital in Love’s Bank, by laying up treasure for you in Persephone’s heart.
By way of illustration, I will quote two real conversations I heard not long ago. The first was between a young couple, Pelleas and Nicolette, who had recently started housekeeping on a small income. They had been giving an afternoon party, and all the guests had left but me. (I am a privileged person, as you must have noticed; nobody minds being natural before me.)