Love Me... a Little, My Darling

Excess in love, like excess in hatred, is a kind of mania. Both do harm to their possessor and to those he loves and those he hates, because on the one hand it blinds his eye to reality, and on the other it loads its possessor beyond his strength and endurance.

The wife who drowns in love for her husband, and fears for him from the very breeze, pampers him more than she ought and makes him feel that he is a baby whose swaddling clothes have not yet been taken off. Naturally no man will consent to be a pampered baby — why, the baby himself will not consent to feel his manhood denied him.

Among the most dangerous symptoms of a wife's excess of love for her husband is spying. Her love for him drives her to know his every motion and pause. She wishes, for instance, to set her mind at rest about him at his work, so she calls him up on the telephone; but his colleagues notice her conversation with him and exchange winks — and he does not accept this winking, yet he can do nothing about it.

If you are a wife, here are three questions before you: answer them frankly, between yourself and yourself. And if you are a girl, take care not to fall into these errors when you move into the house of marriage.

1 — A hail of questions

Do you wear him out with questions every night? If he has been at a party, do you shower him with a hail of questions — whom did he meet? what did he talk about? where was he? what did the girls look like? what did he drink? what did he eat? who sat next to him? whom did he tease, and who teased him? — and all the other questions you would ordinarily address to your daughter.

Your daughter or your sister might accept such questions, and your husband too might accept them, taken as mere acquaintance with, and sharing in, the scenes of that evening. But beware lest these questions take on the look of an interrogation; even your daughter would not accept that, and would shrink from it.

It is of course your right, as a loving wife, to ask him to describe for you in detail the pleasure of his evening — but on the footing that you wish to share his pleasure through listening and description, not on the footing of jealousy and spying.

And remember always that clever saying: "Ladies ask the questions and men invent the answers to them." It is a natural state of affairs whenever the wife tries to lure the man into divulging what he does not wish to tell. If you do not want your husband to lie to you, then do not corner him.

The wife errs utterly if she tries to keep her husband's heart by means of surveillance or control, for before long he will rebel against her openly, after spells of quarrels and skirmishes. The best means of keeping your husband's heart is to strengthen his personality and to nourish his loyalty to you from personal motives. Do not corner him into lying; rather take care always that he be truthful in everything he says, respected in every step he takes. If he errs once, he will know that he has erred, and will call himself to account for his error between himself and his conscience, without your noticing — indeed, he may even confess his error to you.

2 — Do not track his letters

Do you try to spy on his letters and correspondence?

Many wives resort to all sorts of means to see their husbands' letters, even behind their backs: they open the envelopes and seal them up again. The husband realizes that the envelope has been opened, and very often he keeps silent, so the wife imagines he did not know she had opened it.

The sensible wife does not resort to such tricks and does not open her husband's letters, even if he permits her to; rather she leaves them as they are until he comes, and then hands them to him. And the sensible husband likewise does not hesitate to show his letters to his wife after reading them; there should be no secrets between husband and wife that might arouse suspicions. So if your husband hides a letter, do not try to see it: it may be a test of your trust in him; there may be in the letter something that would upset you, and he wishes to preserve your peace of mind; or it may contain trifles not worth troubling over.

3 — Give him the solitude he needs

As for the third question, it is this: do you intrude upon his solitude and his private thoughts?

The Arab wife has succeeded in this line to a great degree. She has left her husband no chance to be alone with himself within the walls of his own house — so he has deserted it and taken refuge in the café, making of his house nothing more than a place for lodging and sleep. The great majority of husbands find in their homes no secluded corner where they may read or write, or even give rein to their meditations and their thoughts. The wife always wants to keep him company with her talk of mulukhiyya and potatoes and the price of dates, or the quarrels of the servants and the neighbors. I know a young man who used to spend his most delightful hours, before marriage, in reading or writing. When he married, he could find no time even to write a letter; and if he was driven to write one, he resorted to the café — because his wife cannot conceive of being apart from him so long as he is in the house.

Take thought, madam, and do not rob your husband of the joys of his life and his aspirations. You have your own pastimes, and long hours that you pass in your own musings — you may not even be aware of them, because you are alone in the house and so find the time to fill this void that is necessary to every human being. Every human being must be alone with himself for stretches of time; will you allow yourself what you forbid your husband?

Answer these three questions frankly, and work to carry out what we have pointed to — and then you will win yourself, your husband, and the happiness of your home.