SIX BAD HUSBANDS AND SIX UNHAPPY WIVES BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX POEMS OF PASSION POEMS OF PLEASURE POEMS OF POWER POEMS OF CHEER POEMS OF SENTIMENT MAURINE THREE WOMEN KINGDOM OF LOVE POEMS OF PROGRESS POEMS OF EXPERIENCE YESTERDAYS Limp White Cloth, 1s. net each. Limp Lambskin, gilt top, 2s. 6d. net. Velvet Calf, gilt top, with artistic side design, 3s. 6d. net each. _For list of other works see end of volume._ GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD. SIX BAD HUSBANDS AND SIX UNHAPPY WIVES BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX Author of 'Poems of Passion' 'Poems of Pleasure,' etc., etc. LONDON GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD. 12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN. W.C. 1912 _All Rights Reserved_ FOREWORD The six wives described in this little book are types which exist all over the Christian world. They may be found everywhere, save in the Orient. This does not signify that the unselfish, tactful, tender and worthy woman is not in the foreground in the picture of life. She is. But her virtues, her nobility, and her ofttimes sorrow, have all been so frequently depicted, that many women who are the creators of their own misfortunes, fall into the error of believing they belong to her class. It is the writer's impression, based on observation, that a larger number of men marry for love than do women. Just why so many men who begin married life with love and ideals, end it by being bad husbands, needs a wider and more careful analysis than this little book gives. But it can do no good wife any harm to study herself, and in reading these pages, try and discover if she appears therein. The noblest study of womankind is herself. THE AUTHOR. SIX BAD HUSBANDS AND SIX UNHAPPY WIVES I The first bad husband had been a very good man until he married. He had built up a successful business and a fair name for himself, and he had done it all without help, and without harming any one else. He climbed without pulling others down; and he did little acts of kindness as he went along, never hesitating to give a dollar where he felt it was needed, even when anxious about the coming of another dollar to fill its place. He helped indigent relatives; he aided a widowed cousin to educate her daughter, and always remembered the children in his neighbourhood at Christmas time. And when he was thirty-two, he decided to settle down and have a home of his own. He married a young woman who had distinguished herself as a bright scholar at college, and he took her away from the drudgery of the schoolroom, where she had been teaching for two years after she graduated. He placed her in a pretty home, and gave her every comfort and all his love and attention.