A married woman should never consent to receive so much a week for household expenses, so much a month for her dress, and to be treated, so to speak, as a dependent person. It should be left to her to decide whether, considering what the financial situation is, she can afford two new hats or one only. The suggestion, much less the order, should not come from her husband, but from herself.
I like the French system, where a man consults his wife in all important matters of financial interest, such as the investment of savings, etc.; but from the day she is married, the French wife begins to be taught by her husband the details of his profession or business, and the best and safest investments of the day, and she immediately and invariably is appointed by him secretary of the treasury—among the masses of the people, anyway—and that is why I have not the least hesitation is asserting the fortune of France is so stable and steady. It is because, thanks to the influence of the wife, French families have their money invested in the safest Government securities. So long as they can work, they are satisfied with a very small interest for their capital, in order to be quite sure that when the days of rest will become a necessity, that capital will be there to keep them, if not in wealth, at all events in comfort and complete independence.
When married couples have nothing better to do, they should amuse themselves making all sorts of plans for the future. They should plan journeys to distant countries, build castles in the air, buy country houses, and consult each other and decide how they shall furnish them and lay out the grounds. These plans are like barricades—they mask the future; besides, they cause you amusement and cost nothing. And—who knows?—among those many plans perhaps there will be one of your predilections that you will actually be able to realize. What happens then? Plans are akin to caresses—they go together hand in hand; they are the gratuitous pleasures of sweet intimacy.
Young married people should avoid being too demonstrative, not only in public, but in private, in the first years especially. They should constantly remember that they enter the state of matrimony with a certain capital of love. They must not squander that capital, but live on the interest of it only.
There are young people who too often feel the want of manifesting their love by exaggerated proofs of tenderness, such as the administration to each other of names of birds and pet quadrupeds, of showers of kisses, of little pats on the face. The exaggerated frequency of such acts produces a reaction, and often a slight sensation of enervation, that should never be born of caresses. And as these outward shows of love run the risk of diminishing in number and fervour, there is danger of their thus becoming a sign or a proof of decline in tenderness.
In public these demonstrations are ridiculous and vulgar; they put other people ill at ease, who smile and sneer, and even remark, 'They will soon get over it.'