Advise for husbands

I thought after the advise I provided on Monday for wives, I thought I would select some "DON'T's for husbands" from a book of the same name, this one was written in 1913.

Don't worship your wife as a saint, and then when you discover that she is, after all, of common clay, spend the rest of your life mourning her deterioration.

Don't keep her in cotton-wool.  She isn't wax - she's a woman.

Don't try to regulate every detail of your wife's life.  Even a wife is an individual, and must be allowed some scope.

Don't omit to bring home an occasional bunch of flowers or a few chocolates.  Your wife will vale even a penny bunch of violets for your thought of her.

Don't dwell on the beauty of other women if you know your wife to be sensitive on the point.

Don't forget to trust your wife in everything - in money matters; in her relations with other men; in her correspondence.  Trust her to the utmost and you will rarely find your trust misplaced.

Don't persist in wearing your hair or your moustache in a style you know she hates.  Just try it another way to please her.

Don't spend all your money on the garden because that is your hobby, and leave non for the house if that happens to be your wife's hobby.

Don't sit down to breakfast in your shirt-sleeves in hot weather on the grounds that "only your wife is present".  She is a woman like any other woman.  The courtesies you give to womankind are her due, and she will appreciate them.

AND (I love this one!)

Don't sharpen pencils all over the house as you walk about.  Try a hearth or a waste-paper basket.  It does not improve either the carpets or the servants' tempers!

* * *