Woman's Talk to Woman: For the Sake of Your Married Happiness

I wish, my dear, to enter, by way of your home and family life, into your little heart, and there to explore some of its hidden secrets, which you usually take care to conceal and keep to yourself... Are you happy in your marriage? Do you sincerely believe that your married life, in its different phases, has been successful and blessed? In other words, do you truly feel that your husband's domestic and family happiness is complete in every respect?!

And now let us be practical and say: how can you, as a new wife, create for your husband a happy family atmosphere, bringing cheer to his eyes, good food to his stomach, and peace and contentment to his heart? You may be among the very best of housewives, preparing the most appetizing and delicious food, tending your house and your family with the best of care — and yet you are perplexed, unable to find any reason to justify your husband's long silence and his distraction from you with trivial things... Has it never occurred to you that he may be excused in this conduct of his, and that you may be directly responsible for this strangeness in his ways?!

How do you meet him in the evening? In what state are you when he enters the house worn out, his nerves exhausted? Do you add to his cares by recounting the latest problems with the maid and the children's quarrels, summing up for him in a few minutes the whole of the vexing matters? Or do you welcome him with a beaming face, with the kindest words and the gentlest to the ear, while you are tidy, clean, and perfectly groomed?

Do you rain questions upon him every evening: Why are you late? Who were you with? What did you talk about?... — flying into a rage at everything contrary to your own opinion, trying to dominate him and extend your sway by all the ways and arts at your command?

Do you often go so far as to search his pockets and rummage among his private papers, like a secret police agent trying to uncover a crime?!

Do you multiply telephone calls to your husband's office, your aim being to pry into his private affairs and learn their details, and to cast suspicion at the slightest doubt — which is, in most cases, mere fancy and nothing more?

Do you know, my dear, how much such light, childish behavior offends your husband, and how many times this very conduct is the cause of a husband's estrangement and his venturing upon amorous adventures that would never have crossed his mind but for what comes from you...

The good wife who works for her family's happiness never tries to intrude upon her husband's private affairs, showing thereby her lack of trust in him, hurling all manner of accusations at him and exposing him to petty scenes of which he is, in most cases, innocent.

And jealousy, which is at bottom the first cause of your conduct — is not jealousy one of the manifestations of woman's weakness and her lack of confidence in herself? Your husband, my friend, chose you as the companion of his life; had he preferred another woman to you, he would not have married you. Your task, therefore, did not end with your marrying him: you must know how to keep his heart and to preserve your happiness

together. So treat him with the treatment of a partner sure of herself; and beware, above all things, of stinting him in the giving of your love and your tenderness, leaving him the field to seek another... Do not meddle in his private affairs, and do not impose your will upon him, pressing upon him with obstinacy and want of understanding...

And the good wife never raises her voice; her dignity restrains her from asking anything of her husband more than once. She avoids insistence and abundance of empty chatter; she rises above all the displays of futile jealousy, and leaves her husband entire freedom in his private affairs — all this is most necessary, if you wish, my dear, to secure for your house and your husband the complete family happiness of which you dream.