The Marriage Book (30 page)

HELEN ANDELIN

THE FASCINATING GIRL
, 1969

Helen Andelin (1920–2009) was in her early forties, married for two decades, and the mother of eight children when she started teaching marriage classes in Fresno, California. Responding in part to the popularity of the new feminism, she offered an emphatically traditional alternative, asserting that women could achieve marital happiness only if they learned what men really wanted from women and then did everything they could to embody it. The popularity of the classes first led Andelin to write
Fascinating Womanhood
, which reportedly sold four hundred thousand copies in its self-published version and more than a million when Random House took over. The book spawned a grassroots movement in which other women were trained to teach Fascinating Womanhood classes. Five years after her first book’s success, Andelin produced
The Fascinating Girl
, which told unmarried women how to get the guy.

The Fascinating Womanhood movement offered a religious element in its pro-patriarchy arguments but distanced even some Christian conservatives, who objected to Andelin’s Mormon orthodoxy.

In theory, all obstacles out of the way, a man proposes. It is not always as simple as this, however. The man may find that unless he has a particular reason to hurry things along, it is easier to procrastinate the important step and keep things as they are. This may go on for months, with nothing resolved and the girl wondering all the time how serious the man’s feelings for her are.

If this is the case, the girl can bring him to action. . . . [One way] of making it easy for him to act is to get him in a
romantic and sentimental frame of mind
.

Few men propose in a mood of cold and calculating reason. The girl should endeavor, therefore, to arouse in him the opposite moods—a feeling of warm, impulsive emotion, or of dreamy, drifting surrender to sentiment. In such a mood, reason is subdued and the impulse to speak out is unopposed. The manner of awakening these sentimental moods is accomplished by
creating romantic situations
. A number of suggestions are given here.

BE ALONE

The first thing to
avoid is a third person. No man ever becomes romantic while other people are around. When more than two are present the conversation and the atmosphere become entirely matter-of-fact. . . .

A COZY WINTER EVENING

The atmosphere can be even more suggestive of sentiment if it is winter and the wind is howling outside and sleet is dashing against the window. How cozy and comforting it is for the girl and the boy, sitting before an open fire with the lights dimmed, to sit and dream. The man may feel that he would like for this to continue forever. There cannot be obstacles, he feels, when life is easy and peaceful as this. How easy for him to succumb to his desire and forget his fears. . . .

WATER: LAKES, RIVERS, THE OCEAN

Even in broad daylight, the effect of water is often spell-binding, especially upon those who may live daily in a crowded city. Night, water and romance are inseparable. Have you ever noticed how young people are inclined to spend their vacations or holidays on or near water? There is a reason. Nothing is more soothing, more calculated to subdue fears and draw a man and woman close to each other than a night scene on the water, with the moon and stars shining on the ripples, the gentle lap of waves upon a beach or against a boat, and the mysterious blackness of a distant shoreline. Many men have innocently taken a girl on a boating excursion at night and returned to find themselves engaged.

PARKS AND GARDENS

A stroll through some beautiful garden, or in the hills or mountains, or in the woods, can often superinduce the atmosphere desired. There is nothing like getting back to nature to encourage a man to follow nature’s impulse to take a mate for himself. . . .

RESTAURANTS THAT ENCOURAGE ROMANCE

. . . Restaurants to avoid are those that are crowded. A small one may be better than a large busy one. Avoid the dazzling white restaurants, the gay and glittering kind, and the casinos. These don’t suggest coziness and contentment; their atmosphere discourages all thought of home and marriage.

A picnic lunch in the woods, in a private park or by a river can be just as comfortable and cozy as a restaurant. Give the man time enough to absorb the atmosphere and time enough to let it penetrate deeply. Never hurry through a picnic in the woods.

HUSBANDS, HOW TO KEEP

OVID

THE ART OF LOVE
, CIRCA 1 BC

The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC–17 AD), though intended by his father to have a public life, instead began a successful writing career with four popular volumes, all about love. Of them, the
Ars Amatoria
remains the most famous and is considered by some scholars to be responsible for Ovid’s eventual banishment from Rome by the emperor Augustus. Others point to an unnamed indiscretion that may have involved Augustus’s granddaughter. Whatever the case, Ovid was married three times.

You must sometimes keep your lover begging and praying and threatening before your door. Sweet things are bad for us. Bitters are the best tonic for the jaded appetite. More than one ship has sailed to perdition with a following wind. What makes men indifferent to their wives is that they can see them when they please. So shut your door and let your surly porter growl, “There’s no admittance here!” This will renew the slumbering fires of love.

AN ITALIAN MOTHER

ADVICE TO HER DAUGHTER, CIRCA 1300

The author is anonymous, and the book, originally called
The Twelve Warnings That Must Be Given to His Daughter When Her Mother Sends Her to Her Husband
, was apparently translated from the Italian and first published in 1885.

Avoid anything that might annoy him; do not be joyful if he is sad, or sad if he is joyful. Try to find out the dishes he prefers; and if your taste does not agree with his, do not let him see it. If your husband is asleep, sick, or tired, do not disturb him; if you must do so, do it gently. Do not rob your husband, lend his goods, or give them away. Do not be too curious about his affairs; but if he confides in you, keep his secrets. Be good to his family and friends. Do not do anything important without seeking his advice. Do not ask him to do impossible things or things that would damage his honor or position. Be attractive, fresh, clean, and modest in appearance, and chaste in behavior. Do not be too familiar with servants. Do not go out too often; the man’s
domain is outside, whereas the woman’s is in the home. Do not speak too much, for silence is a sign of modesty and chastity. Finally and most important, do not make your husband jealous.

“BROTHER JONATHAN’S WIFE’S ADVICE TO HER DAUGHTER ON THE DAY OF HER MARRIAGE”

NEW ENGLAND FARMER
, 1833

“Brother Jonathan” was, as far back as the Revolutionary War, a kind of Uncle Sam figure, meant to represent the average American. His character went through a number of evolutions, but by the early nineteenth century, he was often a prudent moralizer.

You will be mistress of your own house, and observe the rules in which you have been educated. You will endeavor, above all things, to make your
fireside
the most agreeable place for the man of your choice. Pleasantry and a happy disposition will ever be considered as necessary to this important end; but a foolish fondness is disgusting to all. Let reason and common sense ever guide: these, aided by a pleasant, friendly disposition, render life happy; and without these, it is not desirable. Remember your cousin Eliza. She married with the brightest prospects; but, from her petulant, peevish, and complaining disposition, and negligence, every thing went wrong; and her home became a place of disquietude to her husband. To avoid this, he sought a place to pass away vacant time, where, associated with those more wicked than himself, he contracted the habit of intemperance, and all was lost—and poor Eliza was thrown on the charity of her friends.

BLANCHE EBBUTT

DON’TS FOR WIVES
, 1913

This is a sampling of the hundreds of recommendations contained in British author Blanche Ebbutt’s small guidebook (see
Food
).

Don’t think that there is any satisfactory substitute for love between husband and wife. Respect and esteem make a good foundation, but they won’t do alone.

Don’t
think that, because you have married for love, you can never know a moment’s unhappiness. Life is not a bed of roses, but love will extract the thorns.

Don’t expect your husband to have all the feminine virtues as well as all the masculine ones. There would be nothing left for
you
if your other half were such a paragon.

Don’t worry about little faults in your husband which merely amused you in your lover. If they were not important then, they are not important now. Besides, what about yours?

Don’t vegetate as you grow older if you happen to live in the country. Some women are like cows, but there is really no need to stagnate. Keep both brain and body on the move.

Don’t omit to pay your husband an occasional compliment. If he looks nice as he comes in dressed for the opera, tell him so. If he has been successful with his chickens, or his garden, or his photography, compliment him on his results. Don’t let him have to fall back on self-esteem all the while for want of a little well-directed praise.

Don’t say, “I told you so,” to your husband, however much you feel tempted to.

Don’t nag your husband. If he won’t carry out your wishes for love of you, he certainly won’t because you nag him.

Don’t “manage” your husband too visibly. Of course, he may require the most careful management, but you don’t want your friends to think of him as a hen-pecked husband. Above all, never let him think you manage him.

Don’t say bitter things when you are angry. They not only sting at the time, but they eat their way in and are remembered long after
you
have forgotten them.

Don’t be everlastingly trying to change your husband’s habits, unless they are
very
bad ones. Take him as you find him, and leave him at peace.

Don’t spend all the best years of your life pinching and saving unnecessarily, until you are too old to get any pleasure out of your money.

Don’t be shy of showing your love. Don’t expect him to take it for granted. A playful caress as you pass his chair, an unexpected touch on the shoulder, makes all the difference between merely
knowing
that you care for him and actually
feeling
it.

Don’t try to excite your husband’s jealousy by flirting with other men. You may succeed better than you want to. It is like playing with tigers and edged tools and volcanoes all in one.

Don’t let your husband wear a violet tie with grass-green socks. If he is unhappily devoid of the colour sense, he must be forcibly restrained, but—

Don’t be sarcastic about your husband’s taste in dress. Be gently persuasive and train his sense of fitness.

Don’t be a household martyr. Some wives are never happy unless they are miserable, but their husbands don’t appreciate this peculiar trait. The woeful smile is most exasperating.

BRITISH POSTCARD, EARLY 1900
S

The caption reads: “When he deserves it, kiss him.”

IRA WILE AND MARY DAY WINN

MARRIAGE IN THE MODERN MANNER
, 1929

In their chapter on “Holding a Husband,” the authors (see
Grievances
) describe seven types of unsuccessful wives: the wives who are too weepy, too demonstrative, too jealous, too controlling, too clingy, too comforting, and too seductive. The authors home in, below, on the weepy variety.

A husband’s relation to his wife is threefold: he wants a physical mate, a satisfying social companion and, usually, a housekeeper. The perfect wife is the one who can be all three. If she cannot completely fulfil every one of these wants, or if she has ceased to do so, he is likely to look elsewhere for fulfilment. If she does not satisfy him physically, he may find a mistress. If they are sexually well mated but she is beneath his intellectual level, he may contract a morganatic marriage with his business, using that as his intellectual outlet, or become a chronic clubman, or a golf enthusiast, or even a saxophone player. Who can say that our great business preëminence is not, to some extent at least, a by-product of the large number of unhappy marriages which our divorce-rate seems to indicate?