Rambles in Womanland Part 21

No coquetry in matrimony? Who is the Philistine who dares utter such blasphemy? Good heavens! if half the curling-pins, which are used by women at night in order to be beautiful the following day and attract the attention and admiration of strangers, were used by them in the morning, so that they might be beautiful the same day, and draw the attention and admiration of their husbands, there would be happiness in matrimony, and the world would go much better than it does.

The greatest, the most dangerous enemy of happiness in matrimony is habit which engenders monotony. You get too much accustomed to each other, and love fades, as a flower which falls off its stem before it has lived its natural life, owing to some insect which destroys it.

That insect in matrimony is habit, which devours everything without your being aware of its presence. Destroy that insect before it has had time to do any harm, and you will have saved your dual happiness.

A grave error committed by many women is to believe that they must look their best for the friends, acquaintances and strangers who visit them, but that they need not take much trouble for their husbands.

But the fact is that a woman ought to ever appear before her husband at her very best, whether it is in a morning negligee or in a full afternoon or evening toilette.

Your husband, my dear lady, ought to see in you more than he could see in any other woman. All comparisons ought to be to your advantage. It is not at all necessary that you should have an expensive gown on at breakfast-time. Your hair well fixed, and a nice-fitting dressing-gown may make you look as attractive as a beautiful ball-dress.

It is not clothes that make a woman fascinating; it is the way she puts them on.

In fact, never allow yourself to be seen by your husband in any other state than that in which you would allow yourself to be seen by the male portion of your acquaintances, not even in illness. As long as your strength permit, remain coquettish and jealous of your appearance. Yes, I say, even on a sick-bed.

The part you have to play consists in spraying a perfume of poetry around you. Fill your husband with remembrances of you, so that, even when you are not visible, you are present before his eyes.

Allow him the most complete liberty, and never ask him questions on what he has done, where he has been.

Take it for granted that he has done nothing which he should not have done, that he has been nowhere where he should not have been, and it is that perfect confidence which you show you have in him that will always keep him in the path of faithfulness, unless he is, which is only exceptional, an absolutely bad man.

If clouds are gathering over your happiness, it is for you women to clear them away. You are the guardian angels of the home, which is your kingdom. If you have trials, strain every nerve to appear smiling, and if sometimes tears stifle you, shed them in secret, even should the cause of your trial be the inconstancy of your husband.

You will not bring him back to you with reproaches, tears and scenes.

You will thus keep him away for good. Remember that Nature, which has treated you so ungenerously, makes you ugly when you weep and hideous when you make a scene.

You will bring back an erring husband by your kindness, your sweetness, your devotion, and your intelligence. The only infallible way to get a husband attached to you is to let him believe that you never suspected him, much less accused him, even when he was guilty. Call to your aid whatever resources are at your disposal--resources of intelligence, of beauty, of abnegation--and, if your husband is not a brute, he will return to you, and he will be all the more ashamed of the way in which he neglected you for a time that, by your behaviour, you seem to consider he had never for a day ceased to love you.

Never make an allusion to the fatted calf which you killed on the return of the prodigal heart. Be as merciful in your victory as you were in your temporary defeat.

Do not be satisfied with forgiving; forget, and make him forget everything. Use scales: on one side place his years of devotion to you, his industry, his forethought in securing your future and that of your children; on the other his faults; and even if these scales should incline to remain horizontal, with a gentle touch of your finger make them go down in favour of what he has done for you.

The supreme coquetry of a woman is to know how to reign, even when her husband governs. Her very weakness is the best weapon in her hands. Her husband should be the motive of all her actions. Before thinking of appearing beautiful to the indifferent, she should think of appearing beautiful to her husband.

If she is admired, she should feel proud of it for his sake, and make him understand that only crumbs are for strangers; that he alone is invited to the whole meal of her beauty, her love, her boundless devotion.

And let me add that there is not, in this chapter, a single word of advice which I give to women in their dealings with husbands which I do not endorse and give to men in their dealings with their wives.

CHAPTER X

RESIGNATION IN MATRIMONY

According to characters and circ.u.mstances, resignation is the virtue of the weak or the virtue of the strong. A woman resigns herself to her fate in married life, sometimes because she has not enough strength of will, sometimes because she does not deign to revolt, oftener still because she discovers that her rebellion could only make matters worse for herself, and especially for her children.

If her husband is good, her resignation will soon bring him back to her; if he is bad, her rebellion will make him much worse.

If you cannot sympathize with your husband, or adopt his views and manner of thinking, resign yourself, keep your views for yourself, and do not transform your married life into an eternal French public meeting, where, instead of striking pebbles together in order to obtain light, they throw them at one another's faces.

Fulfil your duties. Never complain. Never exact what is not offered to you, unless it be respect. So long as your husband treats you with respect, at home as well as in public; so long as he is the thoughtful father of your children, and carefully and industriously attends to his profession or business, respect him and inspire in your children the respect for him, and especially do not make your children the confidant of your grievances; that is your foremost duty.

I cannot say to you: Try to force yourself to love your husband. This is not in your power. But I will say: Be irreproachable, and thus make yourself the superior of your husband. Devote yourself to your family.

If you are rich, do with your money all the good that you can. The greatest possession is self-esteem. You can rise so high that the offences committed against you may appear infinitely small. After all, we get in this world the place that we know how to make for ourselves.

Never let the outside public know the details of your private life.

Receive your friends and your guests with a smile on your lips. If your husband is a gentleman, he will show you before them the greatest consideration, and if you are a lady you will treat him in a like manner.

If your husband is unable to offer you his love--I mean a lover's love--do not commit the mistake of refusing his friends.h.i.+p, for it is just possible that this man, who has not in him the power to love you as a lover, would still be ready to give his life for you.

He would certainly be still ready to give it for his children, _your_ children. Surely that friends.h.i.+p is worth having. Of course, the young wife, who discovers after only a few years of marriage that the dream of love has vanished, is to be pitied, supposing that it has not been through her fault that the dream has had such a short life; but the woman who for twenty or more years has had a faithful lover-husband is conceited and ridiculous beyond measure when she does not almost cheerfully resign herself to the inevitable crisis in matrimony; and if she has children that she takes in her confidence, and thus estranges from their father, her vanity is not very far from criminal. At all events, she deserves the sympathy of no one.

Resign yourself to the inevitable. Let the days of love, happiness, and devotion count in the final reckoning, and, in turning over a new leaf, be sure you bring forward devotion, and soon happiness may have to be added again.

Put on a cheerful face always, and remember that it pays to excite envy, never to excite pity.

CHAPTER XI

t.i.t FOR TAT

There is more joy in heaven, we are told, for one sinner who repents than for a hundred righteous people who keep straight on the narrow ways of salvation.

And, I should add, there must be more joy in h.e.l.l for one good man who goes wrong than for a hundred sinners who persevere in their wicked ways.

There should be more joy in the heart of a woman for a man who remains in love with her than for a hundred others whose admiration she may obtain.

There are some women who may love a man ever so much, and be loved by him to their hearts' content, who will use all their artillery to bring down strangers to their feet, but who will make little or no effort to look their best for the man who loves them and is devoted to them. For such women their beauty is an altar erected to unknown G.o.ds.

Married life would be an everyday bliss and an eternal one if men never thought of doing to or before their wives what they would never dream of doing to or before any ladies of their acquaintance, and, of course, if women did the same; but such is not always, even often, the case. Hence the trouble.

How many men have taken their wives to a ball, women whose radiant beauty and brilliant toilettes have caused the admiration of all men present, and also the envy of many women?

How many men have felt that, if the said wives had made as much preparation for them as they had for all the strangers present at that ball, they could have fallen at their feet and wors.h.i.+pped them?

On returning home, however, Madame has immediately retired to her room, ordered her maid to quickly remove and pack away the lovely attire, and, an hour later, prepared for the night's rest, she appeared before her husband with her hair all prepared for the next day, her hands carefully gloved so that they may be as white as snow--also for the next day--and wrapped up and as inaccessible as a valuable clock that is going to be s.h.i.+pped to the other end of the world.

That is the lot of many men--may I not even say of most husbands? Then a bold husband will venture to make some remarks. He will say, 'Now, my dear, I hear you practise your scales and exercises, but seldom do you treat me to a piece of music, which I only hear when I have guests or we go out. Everyone--at the ball--has admired your beautiful hair and your lovely gown, but for me, all I see is hairpins and curlers and a dressing-gown.'

And Madame will answer more or less sourly, 'Is it because I am your wife that I must grow ugly? Do you want my hair to fall over my neck and shoulders to-morrow like weeping willows? Do you want my hands to be red and chappy? Are you sorry I am careful of my clothes and have them put away, well folded in tissue-paper, when I have no need of them?

'Do you reproach me for doing you honour and being at the same time careful? Will you tell me, is there any way to please you? And do you think that, after enjoying herself and receiving compliments during a whole evening, it is very pleasant for a woman to return home and hear nothing but rebuffs, reproaches and the like?'