  To marry a beautiful woman for the mere love of her beauty is to undertake to dwell in a country that has a temperature of 100 in the shade without being provided with clothes that will enable you to stand a winter of 50 below zero when it comes. In the relations between men and women it is, after all, beauty that makes woman particularly attractive to man. For this reason, the love of a man is more sensual, more jealous, than that of a woman, which is more affectionate, more confiding, and more faithful. As a rule, the passion of a husband goes on diminishing as that of his wife goes on increasing. A man exacts of his wife her first love; a woman exacts of her husband his last. Only the select few can manage their matrimonial affairs with such clever diplomacy as to make these different elements of happiness and sources of danger work together with success. Married people would live more happily together if Happiness in matrimony is more solid when it is founded on friendship through thick and thin than when it is merely on love. In love a moment of bliss is nothing; it is only the morrow which purifies and sanctifies it. How many married couples would be happy if they would only think of the morrow! The husband who knows how to always keep something in store for his wife has solved the great problem of happiness in matrimonial life. Cupid introduces men and women into that enclosure which is called matrimony, and then discreetly and almost immediately retires. What a pity it is he does not make their acquaintance later, in order to remain with them for ever! Marriages would be very much happier if women preferred marrying men who love them to those whom they love. Matrimony would be a glorious institution if women would take as much care of themselves for their husbands as they do when they expect guests at their dinner-parties and receptions. Women should devote all their best attentions to learning how to grow old in time and gradually, and in remembering that tears make them unattractive, and angry looks hideous. One of the greatest dangers to happiness in matrimony is not want of love, but too much of it, at the beginning especially. Love dies of indigestion more quickly than of any other disease. Never satiate your wife—or your husband—with love. Do not live on £10,000 the first year of your married life, and be obliged to reduce your income by £1,000 or £2,000 every year. Begin gently, quietly, and let your revenue, like your love, slowly but steadily increase. There lies your only chance. With self-control you have it at your disposal. All vocations require preparation and apprenticeship. Matrimony is the only one which men and women can enter into without knowing anything about it. Alas! |
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