The wise woman realizes all these primitive and deep-seated instincts in
human nature, and adapts herself to them. She recognizes the futility of
trying to make her personal protest effective against what is a
fundamental characteristic of all male animals.
Who, seeing a wall with several gates in it, would be so foolish as to
fling herself against the stones instead of quietly going through one of
the openings, simply because she resented the wall’s being there at all!
And yet this is what numbers--indeed the majority--of women do,
figuratively, in their dealings with men; and so destroy their own
happiness. But I want you to be wiser, Caroline. Realize when you
embark upon matrimony that you will have to play a difficult game, with
the odds all against you, and that it will take every atom of your
intelligence to win it, the prize being continued happiness. You may
reply, “If Charlie requires all this management and thinking over, let
him go! I would not demean myself by pandering to such things.”
And I answer, “Certainly, if to let him go will make you as happy as to
keep him!” But if, on the contrary, it will make you perfectly
miserable, then it will be more prudent to use a little common sense
about it. Ask yourself the question frankly and then settle upon your
course of conduct.
If you decide to try to keep him, attend to your means of attraction.
While you were engaged to him you would not have allowed him to see you
looking ugly or unappetizing for the world--such things are even more
important after you are married. Never under any circumstances let him
have the chance of feeling physically repulsed--for the very first time
he experiences this sensation that will be the beginning of the end of
his being _in love_ with you, although he may go on treating you in a
very kind and friendly way. But if you want to keep him in the blissful
state, attend far more to pleasing his eye and his ear when alone with
him than to pleasing the world when you go out. Let him feel that
whatever admiration you provoke--and the more you do provoke the better
he will love you--still that your most utterly attractive allurements
are reserved as special treats for himself alone. If I were able to give
girls only one sentence of advice as to how to keep their husbands in
love with them, I should choose this one--Never revolt the man’s senses.
For, remember, this particular aspect of affection called being in love
is caused by the senses of both participants being exalted. He is moved
by what he thinks he sees in his beloved, and she likewise; and, if the
realities are far below the mark of his or her imaginary conception of
them, so much the more careful should each one be to keep up the
illusions. Very deep affection can remain when all sense of “being in
love” is over, but it has lost its exquisite aroma of sweetness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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