The Physiology of Marriage, CompleteBalzac, Honoré de
General
The Physiology of Marriage, Complete
Balzac, Honoré de
Marriage -- Humor
Let us hope that your espionage will not give you so troublesome a
lesson. Such misfortunes are the fruits of the civil war and we do not
live in that age.
4. THE INDEX.
The Pope puts books only on the Index; you will mark with a stigma of
reprobation men and things.
It is forbidden to madame to go into a bath except in her own house.
It is forbidden to madame to receive into her house him whom you suspect
of being her lover, and all those who are the accomplices of their love.
It is forbidden to madame to take a walk without you.
But the peculiarities which in each household originate from the
diversity of characters, the numberless incidents of passion, and the
habits of the married people give to this black book so many variations,
the lines in it are multiplied or erased with such rapidity that a
friend of the author has called this Index _The History of Changes in
the Marital Church_.
There are only two things which can be controlled or prescribed in
accordance with definite rules; the first is the country, the second is
the promenade.
A husband ought never to take his wife to the country nor permit her to
go there. Have a country home if you like, live there, entertain there
nobody excepting ladies or old men, but never leave your wife alone
there. But to take her, for even half a day, to the house of another man
is to show yourself as stupid as an ostrich.
To keep guard over a wife in the country is a task most difficult
of accomplishment. Do you think that you will be able to be in the
thickets, to climb the trees, to follow the tracks of a lover over the
grass trodden down at night, but straightened by the dew in the morning
and refreshed by the rays of the sun? Can you keep your eye on every
opening in the fence of the park? Oh! the country and the Spring! These
are the two right arms of the celibate.
When a woman reaches the crisis at which we suppose her to be, a husband
ought to remain in town till the declaration of war, or to resolve on
devoting himself to all the delights of a cruel espionage.
With regard to the promenade: Does madame wish to go to parties, to the
theatre, to the Bois de Boulogne, to purchase her dresses, to find
out what is the fashion? Madame shall go, shall see everything in the
respectable company of her lord and master.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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