151. It might be said, What has all this to do with the health of a wife? I reply, much. The customs, habits, and luxuries of the present day are very antagonistic both to health and fecundity.

152. She must not coddle, nor should she muffle up her throat with furs. Boas are the most frequent cause of sore throats and quinsies, and therefore the sooner they are discarded the better. “And this is perfectly true, though few seem to be aware of the fact. Relaxed throats would be rare if cold water was more plentifully used, both externally and internally, and mufflers were laid aside.”[[32]]

153. If my gentle reader will freely use cold water ablutions, she will find that she will not require nearly so much clothing and muffling up. It is those who use so little water who have to wear so much clothing; and the misfortune of it is, the more clothes they wear the more they require. Many young people are wrapped and muffled up in the winter time like old folks, and by coddling they become prematurely old—frightened at a breath of air and at a shower of rain, and shaking in their shoes at an easterly wind! Should such things be?

154. Pleasure, to a certain degree, is as necessary to the health of a young wife, and every one else, as the sun is to the earth—to warm, to cheer, and to invigorate it, and to bring out its verdure. Pleasure, in moderation, rejuvenizes, humanizes, and improves the character, and expands and exercises the good qualities of the mind; but, like the sun, in its intensity it oppresseth drieth up, and withereth. Pleasures kept within due bounds are good, but in excess are utterly subversive of health and happiness. A wife who lives in a whirl of pleasure and excitement is always weakly and “nervous,” and utterly unfitted for her duties and responsibilities.

155. Let the pleasures of a newly-married wife, then, be dictated by reason, and not by fashion. She ought to avoid all recreations of an exciting kind, as depression always follows excitement. I would have her prefer the amusements of the country to those of the town, such as a flower-garden, botany, archery, croquet, bowls,—everything, in fact, that will take her into the open air, and will cause her to appreciate the pure, simple, and exquisite beauties of nature. Croquet I consider to be one of the best games ever invented: it induces a lady to take exercise which perhaps she would not otherwise do; it takes her into the open air, it strengthens her muscles, it expands her chest, it promotes digestion, it circulates her blood, and it gives her an interest in the game which is most beneficial both to mind and body.

156. Oh, that my countrywomen should prefer the contaminated and foul air of ball and of concert-rooms, to the fresh, sweet, and health-giving air of the country!

157. Let me in this place enter my strong protest against a young wife dancing, more especially if she be enceinte. If she be anxious to have a family, it is a most dangerous amusement, as it is a fruitful source of miscarriage; and the misfortune is, that if she once have a miscarriage, she might go on again and again, until her constitution be severely injured, and until all hopes of her ever becoming a mother are at an end.

158. The quiet retirement of her own home ought then to be her greatest pleasure and her most precious privilege. Home is, or ought to be, the kingdom of woman, and she should be the reigning potentate. England is the only place in the world that truly knows what home really means. The French have actually no word in their language to express its meaning:

“That home, the sound we English love so well,

Has been as strange to me as to those nations