Unbearable Wives

YESTERDAY the men were on trial. The chapter on the ladies will be no less edifying.

“What you need,” said a man to one of his bachelor friends who was disturbed by a vague nervous disorder, “what you need is a wife to share your troubles.”

“But I don’t have any troubles.”

“That is all right. You will have them after you marry.”

Such a story is not very expressive of esteem for marriage. Woman certainly has the power to console, but also the power to cause suffering.

The husband scolds, the wife gets angry. Does that make things any better? The husband, once the outburst is over forgets about it; not so the wife. She holds in reserve, unless she is very good, amazing desires for revenge. Moreover, she is argumentative.

“Look darling, look at the pretty bird that’s with those two crows.”

“Yes, I see, but there aren’t just two crows, there are three.”

“No, darling, look, there are only two.”

“But I tell you there are three. It’s always like that. I never have the right to be in the right.”

And soon the tears drop from her lashes. Some women will pout rather than argue.

After a dispute that was of no great moment, a certain wife, pricked in her vanity, risked this imprudent threat. “If you don’t yield to me, I won’t talk to you for fifteen days.”

The husband paid no attention and thought that after a short while life would settle down to normal again. But it didn’t. Silence. Silence.

She would not deign to answer his questions even those asked with the most angelic sweetness.

The husband, beside himself, came to a decision. He began to empty out all the cabinets and drawers, take the pictures off the walls, and was about to attack the drapes with a pair of scissors.

“What are you doing there?”

“I am looking for your tongue.”

Bursts of laughter restored peace. The pity is that the bursts of laughter had not occurred fifteen days earlier.

Tenacity has great worth. A woman probably has too much of it. She may expect to let it compensate for a certain strength she lacks. She realizes she is wrong because she is intelligent. She does not think she ought to yield because a miserable vanity gets in between her conscience and her decision.

It still remains that it is the woman in spite of her limitations and weaknesses who most often creates the happiness of the home and the man who spoils it.

The moralist was not wrong who said, “With all their faults, their perfidy, their subterfuge, their envy, and their lies; with their strong perfumes, their paint, and their powder; their imperfections; and their wretchedness, poor women are so much more courageous, more generous, more patient, more virtuous, more faithful than we men!”

Let each of the married partners judge himself or herself by his or her own conscience, and mindful of the happiness of the other, correct as soon as possible what might trouble the harmony of the home.