CHAPTER I.
INTELLIGENCE OF THE YOUNG WIFE. |
| Out of girlhood into wifehood.—The setting up of a new home.—Woman’s exalted place.—Earlier influences.—Importance of intelligence.—Woman fitted by creator for wifehood and motherhood.—The position of reproductive organs in the body.—Dangers of crowding contents of abdomen.—What all young wives need to know.—Premium previously set upon ignorance.—Heredity.—Failures and successes of our ancestors.—Faults and virtues transmitted through heredity, | 21-35 |
CHAPTER II.
HOME AND DRESS. |
| Preparations for successful home-makers.—The importance of sensible dress.—An opportunity for reform.—The conditions of attractive dress.—A question of healthfulness.—What wives need to know concerning dress.—The kind to be avoided.—Injurious dress destroying the race.—The ailments caused by wrong dressing.—The corset curse.—A summary of the evils of dress, | 37-46 |
CHAPTER III.
HEALTH OF THE YOUNG WIFE. |
| Health insures happiness.—Be ambitious for health.—The scarcity of perfectly healthy women.—Fashion to the Rescue.—The boon of health.—Necessity of ventilation and fresh air.—Duties to the home.—The greatness of woman’s sphere.—In the society drift.—The extreme of wholly avoiding society.—Keeping in the middle of the road.—Pleasures and recreations taken together.—Taking time to keep young.—Mistakes which some husbands make.—Wrecks at the beginning of married life, | 47-55 |
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. |
| Higher standards are being set up in the choice of a husband.—Should be worthy of both love and respect.—Love likely to idealize the man.—The real characteristics necessary.—Deficiencies in character not to be supplied after marriage.—The right to demand purity.—Young men who “sow wild oats.”—Importance of good health.—Weaknesses and diseases which descend from parents to children.—The parents’ part in aiding to a wise choice.—The value of the physician’s counsel.—One capable of supporting wife and children.—A dutiful son makes a good husband.—Essential requisites enumerated.—The father reproduced in his children.—The equivalents which the wife should bring to her husband, | 57-64 |
CHAPTER V.
WHAT SHALL A YOUNG WIFE EXPECT TO BE TO HER HUSBAND? |
| The young wife should seek to be her husband’s equal, but not his counterpart.—The recognized centre of the home.—Woman’s true greatness.—Man’s helpmeet.—Mrs. Gladstone’s part in her husband’s greatness.—Should attract her husband from the club to the home.—Continuing to be attractive in dress and manners.—Should accept both wifehood and motherhood.—Should keep pace with his mental growth.—Guarding against improper use of literary clubs, reading circles, etc.—Solomon’s picture of the model young wife.—A converted heathen’s estimate of his Christian wife, | 65-72 |
CHAPTER VI.
TROUSSEAU AND WEDDING PRESENTS. |
| Husband and wife ruined before their “crane is hung.”—The foolish and ruinous display at weddings.—An illustration given.—How wedding presents lead to debt and unhappiness.—Living does not need much machinery.—Mistake of copying after people of large wealth.—Wise choice of furniture.—The best adornments for the home.—The trousseaux of our foremothers.—The need of simplicity.—Artificialities that make a veil between our souls and God, | 73-78 |
CHAPTER VII.
THE MARITAL RELATIONS. |
| The subject approached with reluctance.—The marital state should be the most sacred of sanctuaries.—Wrongly interpreted it is the abode of darkness and sin.—Its influence for good or evil upon character.—Responsibility of mothers for the unhappy lives of their daughters.—Commercial marriages.—Marriage as it should be.—The husband’s danger from “aggressiveness.”—The wife should not provoke the wrongs she suffers.—Marital modesty.—Parenthood the justification of the marital act.—Reproduction the primal purpose.—Harmony of purpose and life.—Love’s highest plane.—The value of continence.—The right and wrong of marriage.—The relation during gestation.—Effects of relation during gestation illustrated.—The wrong-doings of good men.—The fruits of ignorance.—The better day coming, | 79-96 |
CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD. |
| Motherhood the glory of womanhood.—Maternity natural and productive of health.—Prevalence of knowledge of methods used to prevent conception.—Mothers should prepare their daughters for maternity.—Motherhood the sanction for wifehood.—Effect of fixed habits of mother upon offspring.—Adjustment of clothing to expectant motherhood.—Importance of proper exercise.—The sitz bath.—Effects of environment upon the unborn.—Why Italian children resemble the madonnas.—The child the expression of the mother’s thoughts.—The five stages of prenatal culture stated and illustrated.—The mother of the Wesleys.—The child the heir and expression of the mother’s thought and life, | 97-112 |
CHAPTER IX.
PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD. |
| The command to “replenish the earth.”—Preparation for motherhood more written about than preparation for fatherhood.—Questions which would test the fitness of young men for marriage.—Parents should know the character of young men who desire their daughters in marriage.—Many young men of startling worth.—The improving of a good heritage.—Effects of bad morals and wayward habits.—Effects of tobacco and alcoholics.—How young women help to contribute bad habits in young men.—The years of rooting and weeding necessary.—Attaining the best.—The father reproduced in his children, | 113-121 |
CHAPTER X.
ANTENATAL INFANTICIDE. |
| The alarming prevalence of this hideous sin.—How daughters are initiated.—How expectant mothers appeal to reputable physicians.—Young women should be taught to associate the idea of marriage with motherhood.—Destruction of own health and life go hand in hand with prenatal murder.—E
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