For the Sake of Your Marital Happiness

We shall return, Madam, in this corner, to speak to you of your marital happiness. What is it that troubles this happiness for you and leaves you in a state of anxiety and unrest, your imagination painting phantom pictures that rob you of your sleep and turn you into an ordinary creature stripped of her femininity, the softness of her temper, and the contentment of her character—thus losing the fairest adornment a lady can wear?

Let us search together for the cause of this upheaval in your temper: why do you treat your husband as though he were your rival, opposing him in every opinion he offers, rising up against his theories in the attempt to demolish them, and making it your business to appear before him in the guise of the superior—as though you disdained to acknowledge his superiority over you, even in his own field?!

It is fine, Madam, for you to be ambitious, eager to improve your personality and keep it abreast of the spirit of the age in which you live; and fine for you to strive that your person should hold the standing that raises your worth and, in consequence, strengthens your place in your family and in your society. But beware, Madam, of turning fierce before your husband, and in your personal treatment of him, trying to resist him and to lower his morale. You are his partner; you cooperate with him in life; you work hard to strengthen the spiritual unity of the family, without which complete happiness cannot come into harmony...

The virtuous wife is she who melts her own personality to make of her family a spiritual unity, and works behind the curtain to raise her husband's morale and spur him on to virtue... And how many a great work would never have won through but for the wife's smile and her encouraging word...

We are today crossing a delicate stage of our life. We are determined to demand our political and civil rights until all our demands are realized... And the man is suspicious of our good intentions, and has little confidence in our capacity to keep pace with him; so no gesture must come from us that betrays recklessness or want of balance. Let us preserve our femininity: let no voice of ours be raised and no temper of ours turn fierce, lest the man take this state of ours as a weapon to fight us with, saying: We want women who turn our homes into gardens of paradise where happiness and good cheer prevail—not rivals who shoulder and jostle us and create in our homes a hateful atmosphere in which nerves grow strained and hearts go to bed nursing rancor and spite.

Your first task, Madam, is to secure marital happiness; and it is an instinct rooted deep in woman's nature to fly to the service of others and to the happiness of her family. If you wish to strengthen your standing with your husband and prove to him your competence and your intelligence, then perfect the duties that are yours—cooking, running a house, raising children, and humoring a husband... Leave him no room for criticism or grumbling... And if you have special gifts, such as music, painting, or writing, set about strengthening them, and strive to convince him of the worth of what you have done and are doing... But to rebel against your life's partner and take toward him the stance of a fierce rival, raising your voice on the slightest occasion and crowing gleefully over the least slip he makes—that ill becomes a conscious lady who entered upon married life of her own consent, and who appreciates her responsibility and her first mission in life.

If you wish, Madam, to win your husband's heart and his affection, beware of meeting him with obstinacy and with violent resistance... Rather be to him a wing on which he soars, and a melody to whose measure he sings his great anthem; thus you will win his heart and his mind, and secure the marital happiness for which you strive.