The Marriage Book (65 page)

If a husband be unworthy, then he possesses nothing by which to control his wife. If a wife be unworthy, then she possesses nothing with which to serve her husband. If a husband does not control his wife, then the rules of conduct manifesting his authority are abandoned and broken. If a wife does not serve her husband, then the proper relationship between men and women and the natural order of things are neglected and destroyed. As a matter of fact the purpose of these two [roles] is the same.

Now examine the gentlemen of the present age. They only know that wives must be controlled, and that the husband’s rules of conduct manifesting his authority must be established. They therefore teach their boys to read books and study histories. But they do not in the least understand that husbands and masters must also be served, and that the proper relationship and the rites should be maintained. Yet only to teach men and not to teach women—is that not ignoring the essential relation between them? According to the “Rites,” it is the rule to begin to teach children to read at the age of eight years, and by the age of fifteen years they ought then to be ready for cultural training. Only why should it not be that girls’ education as well as boys’ be according to this principle?

As Yin and Yang are not of the same nature, so man and woman have different characteristics. The distinctive quality of the Yang is rigidity; the function of the Yin is yielding. Man is honored for strength; a woman is beautiful on account of her gentleness. Hence there arose the
common saying: “A man though born like a wolf may, it is feared, become a weak monstrosity; a woman though born like a mouse may, it is feared, become a tiger.”

WILLIAM GOUGE

OF DOMESTICALL DUTIES, EIGHT TREATISES
, 1622

A graduate of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, William Gouge (1578–1653) was ordained as a minister at the age of thirty-two, and for the next forty-five years was both a lecturer at Cambridge and a pastor at London’s Blackfriars Church.
Of Domesticall Duties
was one of his most famous and influential works, though even he admitted that when he introduced his precepts about female submission and inferiority, he often encountered among his women parishioners what he called “squirming” and “murmuring.”

PARTICULAR DUTIES OF WIVES.

Subjection, the generall head of all wives duties,

1. Acknowledgment of an husbands superioritie,

2. A due esteeme of her owne husband to be the best for her, and worthy of honour on her part,

3. An inward wive-like feare,

4. An outward reverend cariage towards her husband, which consisteth in a wive-like sobrietie, mildnesse, courtesie, and modestie in apparell,

5. Reverend speech to, and of her husband,

6. Obedience,

7. Forbearing to doe without or against her husbands consent, such things as he hath power to order, as, to dispose and order the common goods of the familie, and the allowance for it, or children, servants, cattel, guests, journies, &c.

8. A ready yeelding to what her husband would have done. This is manifested by her willingnesse to dwell where he will, to come when he calls, and to doe what he requireth,

9. A patient bearing of any reproofe, and a ready redressing of that for which she is justly reproved,

10. Contentment with her husbands present estate,

11. Such a subjection as may stand with her subjection to Christ.

12. Such a subjection as the Church yeeldeth to Christ, which is sincere, pure, cheerefull, constant, for conscience sake, &c.

PARTICULAR DUTIES OF HUSBANDS

Wisdom and love, the generall heads of all husbands duties,

1. Acknowledgment of a wives neere conjunction, and fellowship with her husband,

2. A good esteeme of his owne wife to be the best for him, and worthy of love on his part,

3. An inward intire affection,

4. An outward amiable cariage towards his wife, which consisteth in an husband-like gravitie, mildnesse, courteous acceptance of her courtesie, and allowing her to weare fit apparell,

5. Milde and loving speech to and of his wife,

6. A wise maintaining his authoritie, and forbearing to exact all that is in his power,

7. A ready yielding to his wives request, and giving a generall consent and libertie unto her to order the affaires of the house, children, servants, &c And a free allowing her something to bestow as she seeth occasion,

8. A forbearing to exact more than his wife is willing to doe, or to force her to dwell where it is not meet, or to enjoyne her to doe things unmeet in themselves, or against her minde,

9. A wise ordering of reproofe: not using it without just and weighty cause, and then privatly, and meekly,

10. A provident care for his wife, according to his abilitie,

11. A forbearing to exact any thing which stands not with a good conscience,

12. Such a love, as Christ beareth to the Church, and man to himselfe, which is first free, in deed, and truth, pure, chaste, constant &c.

GEORGE SAVILE

THE LADY’S NEW-YEARS GIFT: OR, ADVICE TO A DAUGHTER
, 1688

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633–1695), was an influential member first of Britain’s House of Commons and then of the House of Lords. As an advocate of moderation and compromise, he was known as “The Trimmer,” and his best-known books took on religious tolerance, foreign affairs, and the politics of his own country.
The Lady’s New-Years Gift
, however, was a highly personal attempt to give his daughter a realistic view of the proper conduct of women in light of what he admitted was injustice between the sexes.

You must first lay it down for a Foundation in general, That there is
Inequality
in the
Sexes
, and that for the better Oeconomy of the World, the
Men
, who were to be the Law-givers, had the
larger share of
Reason
bestow’d upon them; by which means your Sex is the better prepar’d for the
Compliance
that is necessary for the better performance of those
Duties
which seem’d to be most properly assign’d to it. This looks a little uncourtly at the first appearance; but upon examination it will be found, that
Nature
is so far from being unjust to you, that she is partial on your side: She hath made you such large
Amends
by other Advantages, for the seeming
Injustice
of the first Distribution, that the Right of Complaining is come over to our Sex; you have it in your power not only to free your selves, but to subdue your Masters, and without violence throw both their
Natural
and
Legal Authority
at your Feet. We are made of differing
Tempers
, that our
Defects
might be mutually supplied: Your
Sex
wanteth our
Reason
for your
Conduct
, and our
Strength
for your
Protection
:
Ours
wanteth your
Gentleness
to soften, and to entertain us. The first part of our Life is a good deal of it subjected to you in the
Nursery
, where you Reign without Competition, and by that means have the advantage of giving the first
Impressions
; afterwards you have stronger Influences, which, well manag’d, have more force in your behalf, than all our
Priviledges
and
Jurisdictions
can pretend to have against you. You have more strength in your
Looks
, than we have in our
Laws
; and more power by your
Tears
, than we have by our
Arguments
.

KENNETH WALKER

PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE
, 1933

Kenneth Walker (1882–1966) was a British surgeon who wrote extensively on procedures and diseases of the male sexual organs. He minced no words in his assertions about the differences between the sexes, and the importance for men and women of accepting and understanding them.

Walker, in this same book, debunked the notion that women could control the future gender of their children, presciently writing: “The control of the sex
in utero
is still beyond our power, although at the present rate of advancement it does not seem impossible that some day it may be attained. Whether we shall benefit by this or not is a debatable point.”

Many of the misunderstandings that arise between married couples and between those who have not yet married arise from an ignorance of the differences between the sexes. Woman is as different from man in her intellectual and emotional make-up as she is in her physical line, and the sooner this is understood by those who intend to marry the better. As a broad generalisation it may be said that the emotions play a far greater part in the life of a woman than they do in that of a man. The idea of emotional understanding has not yet found a place in conventional psychology, but that a woman may arrive at a truth by a process in which the intellect appears to play but little part is undoubtedly a fact. It is useless for the man to dispute her conclusions
simply because she cannot justify them by means of logic. She knows that what she says is true and he may argue till he is tired without making any impression. So when the man attempts to prove that what he says is reasonable let him realize that to the woman his arguments are useless. They are but the dressed up puppets with which men (like little boys playing at soldiers) amuse themselves. Men move slowly along the road of reason; women, like arrows, fly straight to the mark. . . . Who shall not say that the emotions sometimes succeed where reasoning fails? In any case, they move on different planes, and to combat intuition by reason is a vain beating of the air.

JESS OPPENHEIMER, MADELYN PUGH, AND BOB CARROLL JR.

“THE ADAGIO,”
I LOVE LUCY
, 1951

A classic of television comedy,
I Love Lucy
(see
Work
) featured Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo, tirelessly pushing the boundaries of the good wife’s role.

Ethel was Lucy’s best friend and frequent co-conspirator.

GERMAINE GREER

THE FEMALE EUNUCH
, 1970

For background on Greer, see
Expectations
.

Every wife must live with the knowledge that she has nothing else but home and family, while her house is ideally a base which her tired warrior-hunter can withdraw to and express his worst manners, his least amusing conversation, while he licks his wounds and is prepared by laundry and toilet and lunch-box for another sortie.

Obviously any woman who thinks in the simplest terms of liberating herself to enjoy life and create expression for her own potential cannot accept such a role. And yet marriage is based upon this filial relationship of a wife who takes her husband’s name, has her tax declared on his return, lives in a house owned by him and goes about in public as his companion wearing his ring on her finger at all times.

HANNA ROSIN

“THE END OF MEN,” 2010

In an
Atlantic
magazine article (later a book by the same title), Hanna Rosin (1970–) argued that women had become the dominant sex in modern society—better educated, employable, and suited than men for leadership in a world in which physical strength has become nearly irrelevant. With women holding a majority of jobs in the United States, men like Mustafaa El-Scari and his students—about whom Rosin wrote in this passage—struggled to cope with the startling role reversal and its implications for family dynamics.

El-Scari, a teacher and social worker, taught a weekly class on fathering for Kansas City men who had failed to pay child support and had been given the choice of taking this class or serving jail time.

Like them, [El-Scari] explains [in class], he grew up watching Bill Cosby living behind his metaphorical “white picket fence”—one man, one woman, and a bunch of happy kids. “Well, that check bounced a long time ago,” he says. “Let’s see,” he continues, reading from a worksheet. What are the four kinds of paternal authority? Moral, emotional, social, and physical. “But you ain’t none of those in that house. All you are is a paycheck, and now you ain’t even that. And if you try to exercise your authority, she’ll call 911. How does that make you feel? You’re supposed to be the authority, and she says, ‘Get out of the house, bitch.’ She’s calling you ‘bitch’!”

. . . “What is our role? Everyone’s telling us we’re supposed to be head of a nuclear family, so you feel like you got robbed. It’s toxic, and poisonous, and it’s setting us up for failure.” He writes on the board: $85,000. “This is her salary.” Then: $12,000. “This is your salary. Who’s the damn man? Who’s the man now?” A murmur arises. “That’s right. She’s the man.”