Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/136

 companion to marital usages begets the crime against nature (which it always is without mutuality ) in three forms, the result of which is the man gets warped, sour, falls into a state of chronic "cussedness," feels "damn" if he don't say it, and falls an easy prey to the first pair of rosy lips that silently invite him to come and taste them.

Husbands don't relish sufferance, they want union — united (wife and husband) stand; divided they fall, and when either breaks the bond and enters new ones, the broom is sure to sweep clean for a while, but in nine cases in ten it's out of the frying-pan into the fire plump and square, and then follows a "Who'd a' thought it?" and "How are you, affinities?" No, no, marriage is something more than the most of women seem to think, and as the most potent thing in being is a woman's smile, I prescribe that for cases of inflammation of wedlock and marriage ague.

Smiles attract; fault-finding and heedlesness repel.

We are told that woman caused the fall of man; if so, she only has power to raise him. Passionalism is the body of conjugal love, principle is its soul. Wives, study your husbands.

Husbands, a word to you. Don't you know that as a general thing you are not fit for a good woman's husbandage? Why? Because you are so apt to be immersed in the things of life outside, as to neglect the world at home; which is mean on your part; for a woman is something more than a handy thing to have around the house.

Her love is never physical, and her soul needs cuddling, brooding, genuine loving, not too often accompanied by the lurid fire begotten of thick necks, and food of flesh and flame.

She is a triplicate compound of flesh, spirit, soul; and no woman ever yet lived who did not more highly value the love of the spirit and soul, far more than that whose sphere lies within the domain of nervous sense; and yet from this last undoubtedly spring many of the purest and sweetest earthly joys. She requires constant respect, attention, tenderness, and she demands homage in a thousand little things, which husbands seem totally oblivious of three months after marriage. All women dearly appreciate trifling kindnesses and attentions.

Boorishness distresses her, and coldness kills her outright; while forced compliance withers the very roots of love, and turns her celestial honey to the gall of hell-fire.