THE WIFE DESIRED 



Leo J. Kinsella 

Divine Word Publications, Techny, Illinois

Imprimatur: Samuel Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago 
Nihil obstat: John J. Clifford, S.J. 

Copyright 1954 Leo J. Kinsella 

Eighth Printing 

Printed in the United States of America



CONTENTS

Introduction
1. The Wife Desired Is an Inspiration to Her Husband
2. The Wife Desired Has Personality
3. The Wife Desired Is Patient
4. The Wife Desired Is a Physical Being
5. The Wife Desired Has a Sense of Humor
6. The Wife Desired Is a Companion of Her Husband
7. The Wife Desired Is Religious



INTRODUCTION: THE WIFE DESIRED

The role of the girl in life is the most glamorous and fascinating in 
all the world. To the nomads of the East she is the "little gazelle" 
and to the Japanese the "plum blossom." In the Book of Proverbs 
she is the "dearest hind and most agreeable fawn." Jewels, 
sapphires and rubies, are her eyes and lips. The softness of a 
spring morning are in her words. Her smile is as the splendor of 
the rising sun. Of all the creatures in the world she is made by God 
the most beautiful. She is the incarnation and summation of all the 
flowers of nature. No man ever spoke more truth than when he 
whispered into the ear of his beloved that she was divine. She is an 
image, a spark of divinity given to us in life as a preview of things 
to come. She is yielding, helpless, yet divine. To whom God has 
given much, from her much is expected. Of no other creature is so 
much demanded. She is to be the helpmate of man the mother of 
his children. She is to keep his home to comfort him in loneliness 
and weariness, and to bring him back to health when sick.

This appraisal of the part a girl plays in life may seem to some 
flattering. Yet, it is sincerely made. Actually this judgment of the 
ladies is more challenging than flattering, for what girl could fail 
to desire to measure up to this appraisal in the eyes of her 
husband ? Countless young wives have merited from their 
husbands the esteem that they were the most glamorous and 
fascinating creatures in all the world. Unfortunately too many girls 
have failed to do so, and thus experience the misery of an 
unhappy, if not broken, marriage. The purpose of this book is to 
show the girl, the young wife how she may easily have success and 
happiness in marriage, being in the eyes of her husband "the 
dearest hind and most agreeable fawn."

The idea of this book was formed in my mind during the last six 
years as I sat at the Chicago Chancery Office as one of the judges 
in the separation court. If you wish negative exposition on the 
subject of the ideal and desired wife, sit in on the Separation Court 
for a few weeks. The judges in this court obviously meet with only 
the failures at marriage. In their task of counseling they seldom 
work with either ideal husbands or wives. As often as not both are 
at fault. When one is chiefly to blame for their unhappiness, it is 
just as likely to be the wife. Causes for failure in marriage are 
pretty equally divided between husbands and wives. Many of the 
unhappy wives appearing there, failures in the vocation for which 
God had best suited them by nature, are utterly unaware that they 
are to blame in a great measure for their unhappy marriage. "My 
husband drinks." "He stays away from home as much as possible." 
"He sits down at the tavern with other women." He is always the 
villain. The poor fellow sits down at the tavern with other women 
not because he is happy there. He is desperate. He has a nagging 
wife, or he is practically married to his mother-in-law rather than 
to his wife. So, foolishly he seeks escape at the local tavern. 
Things go from bad to worse, and finally an indignant wife 
presents herself to the separation court demanding a separate 
maintenance suit. Most wives who have failed and are primarily 
the cause of their broken marriage do not realize that their 
marriage is a failure due to their own shortcomings.

An ideal wife inspires. The failure nags. The ideal wife is mature 
and has cut the apron strings a possessive mother had tied to her. 
She is weaned emotionally as well as physically. The failure is 
immature and not sure of herself, so she puts up with the tyranny 
all such immature people must accept The husband at first might 
attempt to deal with this tyranny and fight against it. The wife 
might side with mother, and so there are fights. In time the 
husband throws in the sponge. He wants to keep the marriage, and 
to maintain peace he often slips away to the tavern. He finds some 
release there. Mother advises the wife that no daughter of hers 
should put up with such shameful conduct.

In talking to the seniors of a number of girls' high schools in 
Chicago over the years, I frequently came across the idea that if a 
girl found the ideal husband, she could feel assured of a 
successful marriage. Cannot wives be failures? Just as much and 
as often as husbands, of course. The ideal husband is an 
interesting subject; but, he is not the subject of this book. I am 
making a plea to girls to turn from day dreaming about that ideal 
husband and reflect on their own lives to see whether they cannot 
prepare to be ideal wives. If a girl becomes an ideal and desired 
wife, she eliminates about fifty per cent of the possibility of a 
failure at marriage.

The average thoughtful girl plans for the day when she will be 
married and happy with her husband. She wants to prepare herself 
for that day. Her success as a wife will be in proportion to her 
intelligent preparation. She does not sit back on her oars after 
marriage either but continues the development of her character 
and charm all the days of her married life.

I cannot cover all the aspects of the ideal wife for a number of 
reasons. Yet, I think that the ideas discussed here are essential to 
the concept of the Ideal Wife. These ideas come from many 
sources--from ideal wives, whom I have been happy to know and 
from failures with whom I have had to deal. Some of these 
successful wives told me their story simply by living ideal lives, 
and unwittingly gave me the ideas of this book. Others were more 
willing, perhaps more able, to express themselves. A number of 
these expressions should have quotation marks around them. To 
several of these happy, ideal wives I gratefully acknowledge large 
portions of this work. We could use, we need more of them in this 
world.

In writing of the wife desired, I hope to eliminate the negative and 
accentuate the positive. So, if I mention examples of failures, it is 
only to highlight the picture of the successful and, therefore, 
happy wife. Incidentally, being a successful wife is much more fun 
and there is more pleasure writing about her than about the 
failure.

Many books have been written on marriage. This is not another. As 
the reader could expect from the title the author deals with only 
the wife and her contribution to marriage. Generally he deals in 
fundamentals and especially so in the chapter on Companionship. 
It is his experience that most failures as wives were failures 
because they could not see the obvious and did not use common 
sense.

The natural and psychological aspect of the wife's part in marriage 
are stressed, because the author is only too aware that many wives, 
cognizant of the spiritual and sacramental character of their 
marriages, fail to put to good use the natural gifts of mind and 
body.

Fortunately the authors who have traced the importance of the 
sacramental character are many. The task of emphasizing the 
supernatural is paradoxically not easy, and we should never relax 
our efforts in that direction. It would be foolish and dangerous, 
however, to refuse to consider the natural, the human things which 
must enter into a happy marriage.

There will be no theorizing in the following pages. After all, there 
have been and are today countless ideal wives. They are all about 
us. We have just to open our eyes to see the reasons for their 
success. Why are they so successful? What qualities of mind and 
body do they possess? We shall see in the following pages. But just 
one more reflection before we begin. Lest some timid soul be 
frightened by the high goal implied in the expression "Wife 
Desired," let her remember that every vocation in life has its ideal. 
Without an ideal, a goal in any phase of life, we flounder about in 
confusion and misery. During World War II, a number of cases 
came to the attention of the world of men living for days and even 
weeks on rafts in the open sea. They always resented the careless 
reporting in the newspapers that they drifted. Drifting connotes 
the lack of a goal. Flotsam and jetsam drift. Inert matter drifts. 
Human beings do not drift, lest they be imbeciles. These men were 
fighting against a destiny weaker men would have accepted. They 
had a goal, Australia or some South Sea island. Day after day they 
struggled toward it with a courage which would not be denied.

Like the mountain climber most of us may never reach the top, 
but, when death comes, at least we can say that we died climbing. 
Perhaps at times in the following pages we shall get our heads into 
the clouds. We hope so. However, we shall keep our feet on the 
ground. Even though in life we have to plod through a lot of mud 
and muck on our feet, we do not have to get down and plow ahead 
with our noses. We can keep our heads in the clear air and our 
vision up beyond the clouds ever searching for the full truth and 
complete beauty that lies out beyond the margents of this world.



1. THE WIFE DESIRED IS AN INSPIRATION TO HER HUSBAND

John was dead tired as he left work for home late one Monday 
afternoon. His physical fatigue partly accounted for his low spirits. 
He felt that he was on an economic treadmill. He was getting 
nowhere. Married five years he and Aeleen and the two little ones 
were still cooped up in a miserable little four room birth control 
trap of a flat. And worst of all they had saved pitifully little for 
their own home It was not like John to quit.

John was not giving up this particular Monday night either. Yet he 
was worried about the future. He did not seem to be getting 
anywhere. He had cast about in his mind for some solution till he 
was in a mental whirl. Should he look for a part time job on the 
side? Should he quit his job, take the plunge, and go in with Joe 
Burns on that gas station? He hated to vex Aeleen with these 
problems. She had the housework and the children. His was the 
responsibility of decision.

As he reached for the kitchen door knob, he paused. A dark cloud 
passed over his face. Aeleen had no bargain in him. She was the 
beauty of her whole school. Intelligent and bubbling over with 
personality she could have done much better.

As the door swung open, Aeleen was wiping a bit of spilled milk 
from the floor. One knee was on the floor; the other balanced 
Michael, the culprit whose mess she was cleaning up. Her face 
came up to meet John's. It was all smiling. The hug and the kiss 
told him that no one else in all this world was as welcome to step 
through that kitchen door. She noticed that he held her just a little 
longer than usual. "He needs me this evening more than ever." she 
sensed. "And what a comfy feeling to know one is needed."

That evening Aeleen fulfilled with colors flying the greatest 
function of a wife. She was his inspiration. She quickly drove the 
black devils of defeatism from his troubled mind. Before bedtime 
he was ready like Cyrano de Bergerac, to fight giants. Her 
confidence in him was complete, not that she did not have to 
chase out disturbing doubts now and then about his capacities. 
She was much in love with John and knew his love. This mutual 
love made it easier for her to discipline her mind, so that her 
whole being evidenced her assurance in him. Come what might 
John was her man and he was the best in the world for her.

Thoughts constant and deep have a way of manifesting themselves 
especially to one spiritually tuned in to the thinker. Aeleen's faith, 
quietly evidenced in her husband, renewed his courage. He would 
not fail her. Aeleen was God's manifestation to him of all that was 
good and beautiful. Like David, the psalmist, he felt that, if Aeleen 
was with him, who was against him?

Aeleen made him conscious that he was the greatest man in the 
world for her money. There was no pretense in Aeleen's admiration 
for John. She loved him deeply. He was her sunshine and the light 
blinded her from seeing anyone else. It was no effort for her to 
stifle within her soul any invidious comparisons between John and 
other husbands seemingly more successful. On the surface, the 
husbands of some of her acquaintances might be more successful. 
Some of them obviously commanded much more income. "So 
what?" fought back Aeleen within herself. "It takes more than that 
to make a husband. John may not be on fire, nor the most gifted 
person, but take him for what he is, all in all, he is a man."

From this brief little picture of Aeleen and John, it is obvious that 
the ideal wife is much more than a companion, a good 
housekeeper, a good cook, and a good mother. She is an 
inspiration. Unless she is this to her husband there is danger that 
all the other fine aspects of her role as wife will be wasted in final 
failure.


ABILITY OF WIFE TO INSPIRE

The first purpose of this chapter should be to convince all wives 
that they have been endowed by God with the ability to inspire 
their husbands. Many wives do not seem to realize their potential 
power in this respect. It has been a revelation to me to find out 
how many wives do not have any concept of this important 
function of a wife. No doubt that is why we are both so unfortunate 
as to meet at the Chancery.

The world is quite a bit what women make it. If our sojourn here 
below is a triumphal parade to the tune of swinging music, to 
women go the bouquets. If it is a forced march through a vale of 
tears, to our lady friends go the brickbats. On the one hand we 
have our Blessed Lady. On the other hand we have to contend with 
Eve. Women have a way about them of sweeping men on to the 
heights of nobility or of plunging them into the depth of 
degradation. To women God has given a mysterious power of 
bringing out the best or the worst there is in a man. History and 
literature reminds us of a multitude of women who activated this 
latent force within themselves and thus provided the motivation 
and inspiration of great accomplishments.

Men left to themselves too long tend to become rough, brutish, 
and even evil. I saw enough of this in the Army during the two 
years overseas with the same outfit. There was something vital 
missing in the lives of these soldiers. It was the influence of their 
mothers, their sisters, their wives, and their sweethearts. The 
deterioration of the soldiers overseas was slow and gradual but 
still very definite. The great mass of mankind finds it pretty 
difficult to climb very much above its environment. An all male 
environment is not good for a man over a long period of time. God 
never intended for the average man to so live. Eve appeared on the 
scene soon after Adam.

The ideal wife gives comfort and encouragement when needed. 
She is wise with a woman's intuition, so at times she pricks his 
pride subtly to enable him to rise to some particular situation. 
Always he has her understanding. She shows her sympathy without 
being sorry for him. Above all, she never allows him to feel sorry 
for himself.

There are times when she senses that her best contribution is 
silence. Her presence is all she can give, and it is all he needs. He 
is upset, out of sorts, confused, and angry with himself. She will 
not add to his turmoil with advice or suggestions. Patiently she 
waits, until he comes down to earth. Sometimes she is at a loss for 
what to say or do to help him. So she says and does nothing. Her 
best efforts at inspiration and encouragement may meet with 
failure and even rebuff. She is human and feels the hurt, but 
valiant is the word for her. She can be blue and down over his lack 
of response, but because she is strong of heart she bounces back 
with resilience for another day and its tasks. She does not run and 
hide from problems. If an understanding must be reached over 
some situation or other, she does not hesitate to thrash the matter 
out with him. Yet she never needlessly worries him. Some wives 
worry their husbands into an early grave, they themselves 
remaining around to collect the dividends of lonely old age.

A good responsible husband was in the habit of going to his office 
Saturday mornings, even though he had nothing to do there. He 
said that he just sat at his desk and read the newspaper. "If I stay 
home my wife will figure out a hundred things for me to do.

When he "cried on my shoulder" about the energy of his wife in 
planning his Saturdays his quandary was extreme, for he had just 
retired and no longer had an office to which to escape.

In every home certain tasks must be performed by the husband. 
The grass needs cutting, the storm windows have to be put up, and 
so on. The husband worth anything is aware of these chores 
properly befalling him. He does not have to be reminded of them, 
or worse, nagged about them.

Things around the house will get out of kilter. An electric socket 
needs attention. A wheel has come off junior's wagon. Because the 
wife is on the scene all week she will be more aware of these 
varying little jobs requiring a man's attention. Her objective is to 
get these odds and ends repaired. Her method will depend on her 
personality, her intelligence, her understanding of her husband, 
and her tact or lack of it.

She may use the direct approach based on the fact that honey 
catches more flies than vinegar. "Dear, I'll love you all day long if 
you fix the toaster."

The indirect method has its successful adherents. For our example, 
we will imagine that it is high time a particular Saturday morning 
that the window screens were up for the summer. While the man of 
the house sleeps late his wife quietly clouds the bedroom with 
DDT. If her husband complains, as he awakens, she innocently 
explains that she did not want him to be eaten by mosquitoes as 
Patricia Ann was during the night. She never mentions the screens. 
But it is easy to imagine that the idea of screens is slowly seeping 
into her husband's befuddled cranium.

The shrewd wife is well poised enough to know better than to try 
to outshine her husband. If she happens to be married to a man of 
inferior intelligence or education, she will best give evidence of 
this fact by avoiding the slightest indication of superiority. 
Indeed, any wife's intellectual ascendancy over her husband could 
be questioned were she dull enough to strive to lord it over him. If 
she is clever she will from time to time approach that big man of 
hers with some terrific problem which is way beyond the 
capacities of her little brain. "Dear, what do you think I ought to do 
about this situation? It has me baffled."

"What is a wife expected to be," any woman might object to the 
above advice, "a wishy-washy dumb Dora? Is she forever and a day 
supposed to play up to her husband?" Of course not. Much better if 
she would play with him. A wife does not have to be an open book 
to her husband. It does not hurt to keep him guessing once in a 
while.

A real man likes to picture his wife as one with spirit and bounce. 
Because she is intelligent with a mind of her own she knows when 
to maintain a principle, when to be roguish and sportive. Gifted 
with imagination she can give herself to the game of intriguing her 
husband. Always she is exciting and vivacious.

The wife loves a little compliment here and there herself, so she 
knows the value of this form of encouragement. Incidentally, in 
most marriages heading for the rocks the couples exchange no 
compliments. Just the opposite is true between people who seem 
still to have some sort of possessive love for each other. I do not 
suppose there exists a married couple who could not concentrate 
upon and draw up a list of each other's shortcomings. The wise 
wife knows that there is no future in this mean indoor sport. She 
counts her blessings. She makes her husband's good points the 
foundation upon which she strives to help him build 
improvements.

The ideal wife does not mother her husband. Yet she knows that he 
stands alone only with difficulty. Physical or mental pain may 
drive him to her. She knows how to accept him then with feeling. 
There is an erroneous idea abroad that women can stand pain 
much better than men. This is nonsense. I have seen men in 
military hospitals overseas suffer in silence. I have seen them die 
painfully in the line of duty without a whimper. Many nurses have 
told me that their experience is that men suffer and bear pain just 
as well as women. Then whence comes this widespread false 
concept? It comes from the observation of our fathers. As children 
we received our first impressions of men from our fathers. And our 
fathers were notorious for raising a terrible howl of pain when 
anything happened to them. Why? Simply because our mothers 
were nearby.

Toward the end of his days a man can look back upon his life and 
find no greater accomplishment than his full success as a husband 
and father. All his varied activities possessed significance, really 
meant something only in relation to his role as husband and head 
of the house. If he had great success in the cheap sense of the 
word and became very rich, but was a failure as a husband, what 
contentment is there in the last recollections of his life ? What 
success, real or fictitious, can compensate for his failure as a 
husband?

No woman can escape sharing her husband's misery or his 
contentment and peace. If she has contributed to his making, to 
her comes the reward of real happiness. No wife hurts her husband 
more than she hurts herself. No wife makes her husband happier 
than she makes herself.

Lest anyone think that sly reference is here being made to 
unfaithfulness on the part of wives, let us clear the decks of any 
such obstructions to understanding what is meant. I believe that I 
am in a good position to make the statement that, relatively 
speaking, very few wives are unfaithful. Men have much more 
cause to hang their heads in shame on this score. However, there 
are other ways in which a woman can bring out the worst in a man, 
other ways in which she can drive him to distraction, if not to 
destruction.


NAGGING

The ideal wife never nags. Nagging of a husband can be just as 
destructive to a marriage as unfaithfulness; and it is much more 
common. Nagging may be slower in bearing its evil fruit, but the 
final parting is none the less bitter. "The stroke of a whip makes a 
blue mark, but the stroke of a tongue will break the bones. Many 
have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have 
perished by their own tongue." Ecclus. 28, 21. Nagging is the 
opposite of inspiration. An inspiring wife uplifts her husband. The 
nagging wife tears him down in whose eyes he should never be 
torn down--his own.

Since a nagging wife is such an abomination and since God has 
endowed her with the ready faculty of inspiration, why do we have 
so many wives who fail partially or completely in this respect? 
Before I give what I think is the answer to this vital question, let 
me mention briefly a very small group of wives. I suppose that 
there have to be just so many sour grapes in every vineyard. Some 
women are congenitally cantankerous, fault finding, carping, and 
shriveled souls, who need no reason or explanation for their 
nagging. This type should be included in the long list of evils from 
which we ask God to deliver us. Every man child should begin at a 
tender age to pour out supplications that he never cross her path. 
He who falls into her clutches must endure a ball and chain type of 
existence seldom suffered even in concentration camps.

One cheerful thought in this connection is that God never allows 
nature to go too far out of balance. He never allows birds to die out 
so that insects and worms take over. He also sees to it that there 
are always enough insects and worms to keep the birds fat and 
happy. This shrew type of wife, thank heavens, is not too 
numerous. I like to think that she generally attracts her 
counterpart, the male scoundrel.

Most women who nag their husbands do so because they love their 
husbands. And the reason why wives are more prone to nag than 
husbands is that wives love more than husbands. This sounds very 
paradoxical, and it is. Yet it is true.

Love has many peculiar and even unexplored phases. When a 
woman loves a man, she creates an ideal of him in her mind. She 
can find no wrong in him, For a time the fierceness of her love may 
blind her to reality. Sooner or later she begins to notice 
discrepancies between the ideal and the reality. He is not neat 
around the house with his personal belongings. He could be more 
punctual for meals. At least he could telephone and warn her of 
any unavoidable delay. Her paragon of all virtues, her idol, begins 
to show his clay feet. He has a lazy streak and does not help her as 
much as he could around the house. These and similar 
shortcomings, even defects of character, pain her because she 
loves him and wants him to be perfect. She hopes that mother or 
the neighbors have not observed these failings. Perhaps she begins 
her campaign by whining at him. His unfavorable reception of this 
startling innovation in their heretofore unperturbed connubial 
bliss spurs her into more direct attack. She relates his faults to 
him and scolds him. Like a school child he is put on the carpet and 
lectured. The old boy does not take to this procedure and strikes 
back with a few pointed criticisms of his own. Unless she is on 
guard, her chagrin at failing to improve the object of her love soon 
grows into resentment. She is in danger of becoming a chronic 
nagger.

The poor victim of a nagging wife was met at the kitchen door on 
return from work with a complaint about something or other 
instead of a little hug and a kiss. "You are late. The supper is all 
cold. I suppose that you stopped off for a few beers."

"What's the use," he thought to himself, "here I was detained by the 
boss about a better job at the shop and a raise in pay. By golly, I 
think I'll have a few beers tomorrow night. With her I have a credit 
of at least two beers."

The history of the nagging wife is a desperate effort to kick her 
husband upstairs. He usually ends up at the bottom flat on his 
face. To escape her sharp tongue he fabricated now and then. 
Through his first successes at keeping peace by this mean method 
he was deluded into thinking he had the solution. Soon, of course, 
his false way of life boomeranged. He was trapped in his lies. He 
lost her confidence and esteem. Then he was inclined to avoid her 
as much as possible. His walk down to the corner drug store for a 
paper in the evening was an escape.

One evening he ran into several old school friends at the entrance 
to the tavern next to the drug store. He enjoyed the half hour or so 
in the tavern that evening. Everyone was congenial. Everything was 
very pleasant, very different from the atmosphere back at the 
house. He was slapped on the back a time or two by old 
acquaintances. "How are you doing, Joe? Say, by the way, I hear 
you're going to be foreman soon over at the shop. Nice going. Keep 
it up. Always knew that our star half-back would get somewhere."

Later that evening husband and wife had a fight. "Are you going to 
become a tavern bum?" was more than he could take. He slept 
poorly the rest of the night and went off to work the next morning 
sullen. The boss and he had another talk about the promotion. He 
hoped that the boss did not mistake his dull and unenthusiastic 
demeanor as a lack of confidence. Or was he confident in himself? 
He was definitely on edge as he returned home again. Soon after 
supper he went off to the tavern feeling sorry for himself, and a 
tavern is no place in which a man can safely feel sorry for himself.

This husband was now in a pattern well known to counselors on 
marriage, a nagging wife and a husband seeking escape and 
consolation in drink.

A wife must never nag. It is one of the great sins of a married 
woman. Anybody could understand if she had fallen in a bad 
moment. Few of us are perfect. Yet one sin does not make a vice. 
There is no possible excuse for her becoming a chronic nagger. A 
wife will never succeed in kicking her husband upstairs. She may 
lead him upstairs, entice him, joke with him, and inspire him. By 
nature she has been endowed with the equipment to do this. It has 
been frequently said that a man must have a woman behind him. 
The real truth is that every man must have a woman in front of 
him.

Everybody likes to be the object of good-natured kidding. It is a 
sign of popularity. It rubs our vanity the right way. I did not 
sufficiently realize what was going on at the time, but now when I 
look back on my boyhood, I realize that my mother was a clever 
wife. She joshed and poked fun at my father. We children got a big 
boot out of it. In fact, the most pleasant recollections of my youth 
were these sallies into the foibles of my father. Down inside, my 
father really enjoyed the game, even though he may not always 
have let on.

Now I realize that there was a method in all my mother's banter. 
Often she was putting over a point, a point which carried danger in 
it and could not be handled except in a good-natured kidding way. 
She was accomplishing the same objective as a nagging wife. But 
what a world of difference in the method and the success arrived 
at.


APPRECIATION

No one likes to be taken for granted. In any human relationship a 
little sign of appreciation goes a long way. Life does not have to be 
a hard pull uphill all the time. To know that someone, especially 
the one we love, values our efforts sends us off with our heads in 
the clouds. The wife who is wise enough to show her husband 
appreciation for all his efforts will keep his heart fixed upon her. 
With a fixed heart he will have a free hand to do the things a 
responsible head of the house must do. That is why, as Chesterton 
has pointed out, Christ said, "My son, give Me thy heart." With his 
heart securely fixed on Christ the disciple had a pivot from which 
he could swing through all the complexities of life without losing 
his purpose. Appreciation gives purpose and motivation to a 
husband. It is one form of inspiration.

Some years ago a couple came to my attention whom I always have 
remembered. They illustrated the importance of a wife's making 
her husband realize that she valued him. The wife had to leave her 
home and care for her sick mother. She was gone for a month. She 
and her husband rented without a lease, wondering from week to 
week whether they would have a home for themselves and their 
three little children. While she was gone, he fell upon a good buy 
in a fairly new home. He said that he regretted the transaction was 
made while she was away, but the opportunity came then. He felt 
that it was his responsibility to do something about their living 
conditions. Having failed twice to locate her by phone he closed 
the deal.

The first Sunday his wife was home they went out for a drive. He 
intended to surprise her. As they were driving around, he suddenly 
stopped in front of their new home. Her curiosity at his action 
turned to grief on being let in on the secret. As she sat in the car 
looking at her new home she began to moan and groan that she did 
not like it. Why did he do it? Why did he not wait until she came 
back? For a moment he sat there crestfallen, not knowing what to 
say or do. He expected elation and was prepared for a pat on the 
back. He made an effort to recover his confidence and suggested 
that they see the inside. She would like the arrangement of the 
rooms and closet space. As they went from room to room, she 
continued her manifestations of disappointment and even 
resentment that she had no say in the choice of their new home. It 
was a bad day for both of them, how bad neither of them were to 
realize for several years. On that day he got the idea that his wife 
did not appreciate him. The idea continued to grow.

When we talked over their problems, their estrangement, and the 
future of the children, they had been separated for over a year. By 
that time he was all through and living with another woman. He 
had found someone to give him appreciation. There is always 
someone around to give it if the wife does not. "The big boob," 
every woman is saying who reads this, "should get everything 
coming to him." Perhaps he was something of a boob, but his wife 
had always loved him, still did, and wanted him back.

In justice to the husband in question, we should remember the 
circumstances prevailing when he bought the home. However, to 
make all wives happy, let us suppose that he made a terrible 
mistake in buying a home without his wife's knowledge. The deed 
was done. What did she profit reminding him of his mistake? Was 
it wise for her to carry a grudge, to give him the idea that she 
considered him unfair or incompetent? Did her duty of inspiration 
cease because he was guilty of the worst possible judgment ?

She was an excellent wife and mother in some respects, but she 
failed completely in the important function of inspiration. She told 
how she had never thought of it but now realized her big mistake, 
her shortcoming. This woman was not the nagging type, at least 
not habitually so. She took her husband for granted. She felt that 
she was doing her job well. She assumed that he was. She did not 
assume a thing when they were courting. If wives worked just half 
as hard and wisely at keeping their husbands as they do in getting 
them, the divorce mills would go out of business. A husband needs 
his wife even more than she needs him. With a little intelligence 
and verve she can keep him easily.


AMBITIOUS WIFE

The ideal wife is ambitious for her husband, not for herself. 
Through inspiration she gives ambition to her husband. He is 
spurred on to do big things for her and wants no reward other than 
her appreciation and the look of pride for him in her eyes. Here 
again wives must heed the words of Christ. If they would save their 
souls, they must lose them. If they would save their marriage, if 
they would have all that goes with a successful husband, they 
must lose themselves and their ambition in their husbands.

A wife is on thin ice who is ambitious for herself, the husband 
being just the necessary means of realizing her ambition for 
wealth or social position. These self-seeking wives are not 
interested in promoting the success of their husbands for the sake 
of their husbands but for their own sakes. This type of wife is 
inclined to overreach herself. By goading her husband on beyond 
his capacities she shows her hand to him and loses his love. He 
may have to admit that she has a strong possessive love for him, a 
love for him for what she gets out of it. But he is not carried into 
seventh heaven by this contemplation of his hard, scheming, 
driving wife. He begins to feel that he is but the stepping stone for 
the fulfillment of her ambition. 

An example of a wife over ambitious for herself may help illustrate 
the danger of confusing this possessive love for genuine love and 
inspiration. The couple met at a large city hospital where the 
young woman was a nurse. She held a position of importance and 
through the energy of her personality carried considerable 
influence. She fell in love with a young medical student. Through 
her connections with the staff of the hospital she had her friend 
placed with the hospital as a student intern. She promoted him at 
every step, even to the extent of considerable financial help. She 
hovered over him like a mother bird. Marriage and the release of 
her pent-up emotions only seemed to urge her on in smoothing the 
path before her coming young doctor husband. She had visions of 
his rising quickly to a position of pre-eminence on the staff. She 
would be the fashionable wife of the outstanding young doctor of 
their community. And he would be all hers. She was still in the 
process of pulling strings to make him acceptable to the hospital 
which might admit his patients, when he announced determination 
to return to his home state. He wanted to begin slowly with his own 
feet on the ground, meriting by his own ability and energy what 
success would come his way. With great show of reluctance she 
acceded to his plan. Back in his home town things did not progress 
rapidly enough for her. They set themselves up too elegantly for 
beginners. Money was running out, her money, which she had 
saved and inherited. She criticized him for not trying harder. He 
countered that he could not make patients come to him. After all, 
it would take time. Be patient. After four or five months she forced 
him to abandon his own meager beginnings and come back to the 
big city. There she knew her way around. She would make certain 
that the hospital accepted him. During the time of his efforts to 
get set up again she prodded him unmercifully. She even 
degenerated into a nagging wife.

When they talked to me, he would have no more of her. She was 
driving him to distraction. Obviously, she was going to pieces. On 
several occasions she had shaken him out of a sound sleep in the 
middle of the night to tell him how she had done something for 
him over at the hospital. Once she gave him the pre-dawn 
information that she had just cleaned the walls of the kitchen. The 
implication always was "What are you doing? Why don't you do 
something?" She had lost whatever poise she had and was 
becoming frantic.

On being asked why he married her, he replied that she seemed to 
be capable and efficient. He thought that she would be a real 
helpmate during the early, hard years of getting started. Actually 
she had never given him a chance, he felt. He could see the 
growing contempt in her eyes for his failure to measure up to her 
ambitions. He admitted that she still had a queer, possessive love 
for him. This appraisal of her mood was correct, for she tearfully 
expressed her desire for his return. She wanted him for herself and 
was miserable without him. This unfortunate woman did not love 
her husband for himself. Proof of this was evidenced by her 
attempts to harm him after their separation. She stooped to efforts 
at discrediting him in his profession. She had spread stories 
damaging to his character. At the same time she pleaded in a 
frenzy with me to help her get him back.

It was difficult to explain to this wife how she had failed to inspire 
her husband. Had she not done everything a wife could possibly 
do to promote her husband? She could not see that her 
overmastering ambition was the undoing of her chances for 
happiness. She expected and desperately wanted affection. Yet she 
drove him on with contempt in her eyes for his inability or lack of 
desire to come up to her expectations. Patience was wanting in her, 
the patience founded on a love of her husband for himself and not 
for what he might do for her. In her life she manifested all the 
outward works of an inspirational wife. The inner spirit was 
lacking. She married to satisfy her own desires and ambitions.


IDEALIZING FATHER

A young man unconsciously looks for the qualities of his mother 
in his wife. Foolishly he may give expression to comparisons. We 
are all familiar with the refrain, "Mother made the best apple pie 
ever eaten." It may be strange, but seldom do these encomiums 
paid to mother produce in the wife a warm glow of affection for 
her husband. On the other hand, the young wife is inclined to 
expect her husband to mirror her father, especially if he was a real 
man. Her father did things this or that way.

The ideal wife guards against this usual idealization of her father. 
Her husband is another man There are other ways of doing things 
beside the way father did them. Father is a fine man. Yet it would 
be a dull world if all men were similar to him. The sensible wife 
does not try to mold her husband after him. She is not inspiring 
her husband to develop his own abilities and personality by so 
doing.

Mr. X did not seem to be the type of man who drank to excess to 
escape reality. He seemed to be more of a social drinker. His 
reality appeared to be a very pleasant one from which no one 
would want to escape. He enjoyed many blessings. His wife was an 
attractive woman. They had several exceptionally beautiful 
daughters whom they both took great pleasure in displaying on 
many social occasions. Although his salary was not fabulous, it 
was considerably above average and ran into five figures. They 
made a handsome couple as they sat in their box at the race track. 
Their daughters added to the picture. They surely were the envy of 
the crowd. Yet all was not well. In fact, his wife was on the verge of 
calling it quits. She never knew when he would come home or in 
what condition.

He had no complaints against his wife and wanted to keep the 
marriage. He promised reform, willingly admitting that he had 
been giving her a rather hard time His position was of the type 
which readily could be the occasion of an excessive amount of 
social drinking He had let it get out of hand, was going to put a 
stop to it, and would quit completely if necessary.

Several months went by, and then the word came from the wife 
that his reform was short lived. Several weeks after they had been 
down to the Chancery he was back to his heavy drinking.

After getting more familiar with the couple. I began to be a little 
suspicious that his reason for drinking lay with her. It is not often 
that an excessive drinker has not one single complaint against his 
wife. Was she such an ideal wife that even her half-drunk husband 
could find no fault in her? Or was he hiding something which 
stung him deep down inside? In all outward appearances he had 
been a very successful man. He was regarded in a wide circle of 
friends and acquaintances as a polished man about town. Was 
some one missing in this group of admirers ?

From a reliable source, not usually available, the information came 
to me that he never had her esteem, admiration and inspiration. 
She had a rugged, masterful sort of father, a real two-fisted he-
man. She worshipped him as a child and young woman. As a young 
wife she compared him with her husband and found her husband 
wanting. She really never gave herself completely to her husband. 
Yes, outwardly she did. She smiled sweetly at him. She was faithful 
and dutiful in all the varied activities of married life. But that 
inner spark was missing, and he knew it. He was too proud to 
admit, probably even to himself, that he had failed to win her full 
love, the kind of love that goes overboard and blindly says, "You 
are the best there is."

Perhaps this woman had not matured sufficiently. She was still the 
little girl at her father's knee. She did not have to think any the 
less of her father because she had married. By analyzing her 
husband, by breaking him up into the parts of a jigsaw puzzle and 
being unable to fit him into the pattern of her father, she 
underestimated him. No two people are alike. Suppose that she had 
attempted to fit her father into the character and pattern of her 
husband. They still would not have dovetailed. That would not 
have made father necessarily any less a man, only a different man.

To the casual observer this woman would seem to be an ideal wife. 
Yet she had failed her husband in the most important role a wife 
must play in marriage. Like any husband this man wanted her and 
needed her for his inspiration, but she would not or could not 
deliver the goods. What a man required most from his wife was 
lacking. So many wives seem to have no realization of what their 
husbands have a right to expect first from them, and not getting it, 
little else matters.

He saw himself not measuring up to her standards. He looked into 
the mirror of her eyes and saw himself deflated. The eyes of a wife 
are a man's mirror. When he looks into them and sees a veritable 
giant on wheels, it is like strong wine. He feels like a giant ready to 
take the world by the tail and swing it. When he sees a little dwarf 
in her eyes, he begins to feel like one and to act like one. He may 
put on a big show with lots of bluster. Lacking conviction from her 
he may go to all extremes to convince himself that he is a "big 
shot." He tries hard to magnify the puny vision of himself. With all 
sorts of maneuvers, bragging, condemnation and belittling of 
others, and drinking he strives to grow in stature in her eyes. The 
more frantic become these efforts, the more he sees his image 
shrinking in the mirror of her eyes.

Of course, there are plenty of cases where the wife is only half to 
blame. Ideal wives have a way of going with ideal husbands. A man 
has no business marrying a woman unless he is in love with her, 
unless she had become the most beautiful thing in life to him. If 
during the years of their marriage he continues to look into her 
eyes and tell her of this beauty to him she will grow more beautiful 
for him. Too many husbands do not know that a woman must be 
told that she is beautiful in order to be beautiful. A wife who is 
being told that she is most beautiful will glow with love for her 
husband. He will see in her eyes this love for him. Then she will be 
looking back at him through rose colored glasses. She sees nothing 
but good in him. The mirror is highly polished and sparkling, and 
he fills it. He has everything she can give now, and the greatest of 
her gifts is the inspiration a man needs from his wife to be a 
husband and a man.

I have no recollection of a single broken marriage wherein the wife 
was primarily to blame and at the same time an inspiration to her 
husband. Failure and inspiration do not mix well. The ability to 
inspire her husband is the wife's best guarantee of success in 
marriage. Only if she fails to inspire need she be fearful for their 
love and the future of their marriage. How can a wife miss if she 
has her man jumping up and down beside himself in excitement of 
effort to fill those big blue eyes of his wife? All right, make them 
green. They are still the most beautiful eyes in the world to him, 
because he sees himself in them. Men are much more vain than 
any woman ever dreamed of being.

Very few inspirational wives fail in marriage through their own 
fault. It is possible for a wife to give all desired in the way of 
inspiration and receive no response. Admittedly, no wife, be she so 
perfect in this respect, can inspire a cabbage. But be it known to 
all women that few mortal males can resist inspiration. They thrive 
on it. They are "dead ducks" when women look down the sights of 
their not too secret weapon, their inspiration.

Frequently single young ladies raise an objection: "How can I 
inspire, show appreciation, and make the young man with whom I 
am going think that he is the greatest man in the world to me? He 
already leans over backward in trying to make me think he is the 
answer to every maiden's prayer. He is already so conceited I 
shudder to think of blowing him up any more. I often wonder if he 
never wears a hat because he can find none to fit his head." 
Married women seldom ask a question like this. Is it because of 
their experience they sense that inspiration does not make a 
husband conceited?

The answer to this objection already has been given to discerning 
readers, but, because it is commonly heard, an explicit reply 
should be made. Conceit is usually symptomatic of an inferiority 
complex. All the manifold gyrations of a conceited man, his 
bragging, his puffing and huffing. his belittling of others, all his 
noise and bluster, are efforts to convince the world of something 
of which he himself is not convinced, namely, that he is a man. If 
he were sure of himself, he would not be worrying his head about 
whether or not the rest of men are sure of him.

The inspiration of a wife is the best tonic in the world against a 
husband's conceit. He has confidence from her as well as from his 
own consciousness of himself. He is not selling himself short 
because he knows that the best there is in the world is long on 
him. Nor does the inspired husband sit back in self-satisfaction. 
He is charged into action to measure up to the esteem of the one 
most precious to him. He feels unworthy of her but is not thereby 
depressed. He thrills to the excitement of planning to do big things 
for her. Nothing will be too good for his love. To preserve her as 
she is he would wrap her in cellophane or fine spun gold. What 
obstacle could thwart him in keeping her lovely and happy?

Can a husband be conceited who loses himself so completely in 
such a consuming blaze of love for his wife? The conceited man is 
forever concerned with himself; the inspired man is forever 
concerned with the source of his inspiration.

So take it from me, ladies, inspiration is your love potion. Men 
wander through the cold world seeking the warm eyes of 
inspiration like a thirsting deer panting after fountains of water. 
Not having it, they are lost souls. On finding it, they leap for joy, 
and the very mountains break forth into singing. So, be kind, 
ladies, lest men die of hunger and thirst. Give hope and 
encouragement to carry on. It is so easy for you; just be as God 
made you, His loveliest of creatures.

After speaking on this absorbing topic of inspiration, I have often 
been asked how a woman can inspire her husband. The question at 
first was disconcerting after having spent fifteen or twenty 
minutes on the subject. But I suppose there is no way to humility 
except down the road of humiliations. The only answer I have ever 
given to this query is as follows: God has not given to me but to 
you, ladies, the ability to inspire. You are asking me how to 
inspire? To you have gone God's gifts. Within your being you hold 
from Him the power of life and death for the poor creatures of the 
weaker sex. With inspiration from you men vibrate with life. 
Wanting it, they go through the motion of living.



2. THE WIFE DESIRED HAS PERSONALITY

"Nobody will play with me" is a sad complaint made to mother by 
most every child. The grief of rejection by her playmates is 
announced with tears and sobs. The child makes no effort to hide 
the hurt. Dissimulation comes with age. We never get used to 
rejection. Only we learn to conceal our pain and to live with it.

If an adult smiles at these tears of childhood rejection, it is 
because he knows that the tears will dry as quickly as they flowed. 
Tomorrow is another day. As likely as not, the child spurned by his 
playmates today will be the happy center of attraction tomorrow.

It is another story when the young woman ready for marriage is 
continually avoided or when the wife is rejected by her husband. 
There are few sorrows in life equal to the misery of a wife no 
longer wanted by her husband.

It is so natural for a wife to be anxious to be accepted, to be sought 
after, to be desired and pursued by her husband. She was made 
that way. None of us have any choice about wanting to be happy. 
And happiness can come to a wife only through the love of her 
husband. Love does not go with rejection.

Several successful wives have jokingly said to me that they were 
more interested in being desired by their husbands than in being 
ideal wives. Yet, these wives were successful not because they 
were simply women, but because they were interesting women. 
They had appealing personalities. Unless they had striven for the 
ideal and in great part had reached the goal, they would not have 
been so lighthearted in their remarks.

The ideal wife will be a desired and happy wife, if she merits the 
attention which she rightly craves from her husband.

It has been said that women are all sugar and spice. Then 
personality is the spice which makes the sugar desirable. After the 
first infatuation of marriage has vanished, too many men have 
awakened to the realization that they drew a blank in respect to 
personality. The wise woman assures herself of success and 
happiness in marriage by making the most of her spice. It is 
through the use of her spice that she keeps her husband interested 
in the sugar.

The desired wife has developed her personality before marriage 
and continues that development during marriage. By personality 
here I mean beauty of soul and all those qualities and 
accomplishments which go to make a person interesting and 
sought after. Personality will carry a girl a great deal further in life 
than physical beauty. In fact, without personality beauty often 
tires one in married life. Some girls are born with physical beauty. 
None are born with personality. They must develop and cultivate it 
all the days of their lives.

A girl can develop personality chiefly by learning to do things. No 
matter how beautiful she is, the girl who does nothing but sit on a 
sofa and vegetate is not going to be a bargain for any husband. 
After the first flush of infatuation wears off, she will be very 
fortunate if she does not bore him stiff.

On the other hand, the girl who learns to swim, to play tennis, to 
sing, to play the piano, to dance, to sew, to cook, and to read good 
literature, is going to become an interesting person. Her company 
will be sought after and enjoyed. Out of the long hours of practice 
at the piano or with the voice, for example, there evolves a 
stronger character. Patience, persistence, a realization of what it is 
to fail, to exult in momentary success, to suffer and, therefore, to 
be able to feel for others--all this and more will come to her 
because of her hours of work at the piano. So, when she is called 
upon by her friends to play for them, she is happy to be able to 
entertain them. The thought that she brings music into their lives 
and thus adds to their happiness brings her a quiet confidence 
enhancing her luster.

To take another example, suppose that she learns to play tennis. 
She is awkward and slow on her feet. There is the temptation to 
quit after the first ridiculous effort, to preserve her dignity, and to 
draw back within herself and thus avoid the embarrassment of 
ridicule from bystanders and the teasing of her friends. But she 
resists the temptation to remain a wall flower. She swallows her 
pride and through the little humiliations of clumsy failures grows 
in humility.

She already is reaping her reward for effort. Because she has 
begun to grow in the virtue of humility, there open up before her 
all the various paths of virtue heretofore closed or even unknown 
to her. For instance, upon the foundations of humility now 
established in her life, she has to take but one easy step to a sense 
of humor. She is now able to laugh at herself as well as at others.

Perhaps some may think that I am exaggerating to say that the 
great virtue of humility, an entree to all the virtues, and even a 
sense of humor can be developed, by attempting to learn the game 
of tennis. Not in the least. How did the saints or anyone ever 
develop the virtue of humility? By sitting at home twiddling their 
thumbs? By withdrawing into their shells, so that no one could 
laugh at their shortcomings and mistakes? No. They dared to fail, 
and in their mixture of failures and successes they drew a clearer 
picture of their real worth. They became humble and, therefore, 
very lovable in the eyes of God and man.

More will be said later about this incipient sense of humor 
accidentally, it may appear, found on the tennis court. It is so 
important a facet of personality, as a radiant jewel in the crown of 
the ideal wife, that a full chapter will be devoted to its 
consideration.

A last word about humility. If a sense of humor is a shining jewel 
in the crown of the ideal wife, then humility is the golden base of 
the crown and the support of all else it may contain. Many have 
the false idea that they are being humble by staying in the 
background and attempting nothing. The brash, bold and 
conceited girls are the ones out in the limelight doing things. More 
often than not it is just the opposite. The girl who dares to do 
things, especially in competition, is the humble girl. She may fall 
flat on her face. So what? She is not concerned with herself, not 
worried about what others may think. Because she is humble, she 
is not aware that anyone is thinking of her anyway. The girl who 
fears to venture is the conceited girl. She is afraid to provide 
laughter at her own expense. She flatters herself that everybody is 
watching her. Hardly anybody knows that she is alive.

By learning to do things the girl is developing unconsciously, as 
likely as not, her personality and thus is equipping herself to be 
able to contribute to the enjoyment of others, her future husband, 
for instance. She is able to hold down her end of the social teeter.

A certain girl learned to play bridge. She never entered any bridge 
tournaments, but she could hold her own with the better players. 
Most of her bridge was played at college. She hardly played at all 
for a few years. In fact, she could not remember playing once since 
she was married three months ago.

Her husband invited his boss and wife over for dinner. He 
apprehensively told her that they were eager bridge fans. She was 
amused at her husband's concern for what he thought would not 
take place after the coffee was served.

The husband's apprehension turned to bewilderment as his wife 
got out the cards and table. What could have turned out to be a 
rather futile evening amounted to almost a personal triumph as 
she engineered a little slam. She derived the most satisfaction 
from the quiet pleasure manifested in her husband over a newly 
discovered accomplishment of his wife. Three people enjoyed 
themselves of an evening simply because she knew how to play a 
card game. She was able to promote the pleasure of others. When a 
wife is able to do that, more satisfaction eventually comes to her.

Just the other evening a young wife came up to me as the study 
group was leaving. She had a big problem. We met on Monday and 
Wednesday evenings. She had a chance to join a swimming class 
sponsored by the company for which she worked. The group was 
to meet on Wednesday evenings for six weeks. She very much 
wanted to learn to swim for her husband's sake. He liked to swim. 
She was deathly afraid of water and could not swim.

Last summer during and after their honeymoon she felt very 
stupid. She was able only to sit on the beach while her husband 
went into the water with the others. When he comes home from the 
Army next summer, she wants to surprise him with her ability to 
swim. However, the study club came first. She wanted more than 
anything else to finish the course. I encouraged her to take the 
opportunity to learn to swim. We could make up what she missed 
on the Wednesday evenings.

Several weeks later the young wife told me, with evident pleasure 
dancing in her eyes, how she was learning to swim. This girl is 
awake. Instead of sitting home just waiting for her husband to 
come home to her from the Army, she is developing her abilities 
and thus improving her personality. Imagine the fun they are 
going to have together at the beach next summer. How proud her 
husband is going to be of her and how he will love her for her new 
accomplishment.

If anyone still fails to see that personality goes hand in hand with 
doing and accomplishing things, acquiring abilities and virtues, 
let her consider the following fact. Most people are interested in 
those who have reached the top in their calling or profession. 
When Babe Ruth visited a school, he had every boy jumping out of 
his shoes to see him. Why? Because the Babe had done things. He 
had played baseball as no one before or since. He was worth seeing 
at close range. Why would any woman be flattered and excited 
over the prospect of a visit to her home by the women's national 
figure skating champion or the leading Metropolitan tenor? In all 
likelihood for no other reason except that they have done things 
for which they have become interesting personalities.

Perhaps by this time a few objections have been forming, because 
this is being read critically even if with an open mind. What about 
all the celebrities who have been failures as wives? Have I said 
anything about celebrities? All sorts of characters become 
celebrities these days. An heiress marries one Dilbert after 
another. She is a celebrity of a notorious sort, no doubt, and a 
miserable failure as a wife. I have been writing of interesting 
personalities who have accomplished things. This heiress has 
accomplished nothing. And remember, that a well rounded 
personality is only one of the points on which we are to insist as 
essential to the concept of the ideal wife. There can be no doubt, 
all things else being equal, that the girl with personality has a far 
better chance of succeeding as a happy and desirable wife.

Another might object that we are talking over the heads of most 
girls. After all, how many can be national figures skating 
champions? Only one at a time. How many have the voice and all 
the necessary favorable circumstances to become an opera star? 
Comparatively speaking, an infinitesimally small number. The girl 
who developed her personality by learning to play a simple game 
of tennis did not become a national champion, but by learning to 
play a passable game of tennis she benefited her personality. Very 
few girls are ever going to reach the top in anything. There is so 
little room up there. Indeed, it is better that a girl become adept at 
a number of things rather than to strive for supremacy in just one 
thing. In this way she has a much better chance of developing a 
well rounded personality.

After reading the manuscript on personality a young wife 
expressed concern over her situation. Her husband was in Europe 
with the Armed Forces. He was doing things, seeing historical 
places. She was sitting at home cooped up in a little apartment 
with three small children. He was developing his personality; she 
was stagnating.

When she expressed herself I had no idea what her husband was 
doing. I did know what she was doing, and it was a heroic task of 
keeping the home fires burning. Valiant was the word for her 
during the long months of loneliness as she kept faith with her 
husband, her children, and herself. Because she suffered nobly the 
pain of those two years, she is a finer person today. Because she 
accomplished something worthwhile she developed her character 
and personality.

During the past year this wife has been reunited with her husband. 
They have made up for lost time and she is expecting. The new 
baby to be is their expression of gratitude to God for their reunion 
after so many months of separation and loneliness.

After the children are stowed away for the night this young couple 
generally watch TV for a few hours. When I dropped in on them 
one night, I was surprised not to see the usual darning needle 
whipping in and out of a sock. This evening she had before her a 
canvas partly covered with fresh paint. For the evening she was an 
amateur painter. So young wives, and not so young wives, for that 
matter, need not stagnate at home, with or without their husbands. 
They can be, for example, amateur painters and have a lot of fun 
and relaxation in the effort.

No doubt there are a hundred better ways of developing 
personality than by learning to play tennis. A few simple examples 
like the ability to play tennis or bridge are given for the purpose of 
bringing this discussion of personality down to earth. There is a 
lot of vague and mysterious verbiage bandied about in connection 
with the subject of personality. Our concern is to realize the 
simple fact, too much overlooked, that growth in personality 
comes only through doing worthwhile things, simple though they 
may be.

When I was stationed at an air base in the States during World War 
II, a young doctor came to me about his marriage troubles. He 
surprised me with the statement that he was thinking of divorcing 
his wife. The doctor lived on the field with his wife and two 
children. Although my acquaintance with the family was mostly 
limited to the doctor and his work at the station hospital, I was 
surprised to hear of his difficulty. His wife was a beautiful woman. 
With evident pride he mentioned that she had won a beauty 
contest at a southern college. He told me that at first he had 
thought that she was below par physically. Having found that she 
was in good physical condition he brought her to a psychiatrist. 
This move only strained their relationship all the more.

All his complaints seemed to stem, as he put it, from his wife's 
lack of zest for life. "She seems to be interested in nothing. Oh, 
she is a faithful wife and devoted mother. She is attractive in her 
own delicate, pale sort of enervated way. But she will do nothing 
with me."

He did not have to explain that the air base in Arkansas did not 
offer many opportunities for the type of life with which most of us 
were familiar. On his afternoon off from the hospital he would 
suggest that she come with him on a drive through the Ozarks. 
They could have dinner out and be alone. At least, they could 
escape the enervating heat and dust of the base. But she was not 
interested. She preferred to sit at home.

On a fine Sunday morning a few weeks later he might suggest that 
they take a stroll through the meadows and woods. They could 
pick some of the spring flowers. The two little girls would enjoy it 
even more. No matter what the doctor would suggest they do 
together she still was not interested. She wanted to sit at home. 
The only difference between some people at night and at day is 
that at night they lie down.

I do not know what happened to their marriage. Shortly after he 
talked to me I was transferred. Of course, I had tried to dissuade 
him from such a futile action as divorce. He admitted that he 
wanted to keep the marriage but he had a problem, and only she 
could solve it. Obviously, his wife was lacking sadly in personality. 
Very likely she has retrogressed during their nine years of 
marriage. She had her husband, a promising young doctor. She was 
secure, so she sat back on her sofa and existed.

Happiness tends to spread itself. The best explanation for God's 
creation of the human race is the happiness of God. He needed 
nothing, wanted nothing, but He was so happy that He flowed over 
into the creation of man. He desired someone to share His 
happiness with Him.

With us it certainly is true that joy bubbles over. A boy hears of a 
circus coming to town. A girl on the inside track with teacher hears 
of an unexpected free day. Both can hardly contain themselves till 
they tell their friends, till they spread their happiness over the 
good news. A young man receives a raise in pay. He does not fall 
asleep on the way home from work that evening. He is anxious to 
rush into the house and break the good news to his wife and see in 
her eyes the joy which he has brought about.

Extroverts are happy people. Introverts are unhappy people. 
Mental institutions, the saddest places in the world, are full of 
introverts. The extroverts are out jumping around in the sun. 
These are general statements. I realize that all general statements 
are false, including the one I am just making. Yet there can be no 
doubt that introversion leads to loneliness and unhappiness.

The girl who develops her personality sidesteps the pitfall of 
introversion. The girl with personality does things and with other 
people. She expresses herself in her various hobbies, avocations, 
and accomplishments. She has opened up and blown off, as we 
say. Wonderful tonic psychologically. The introvert withdraws 
usually in self-pity inside herself like a clam. "Poor little me. The 
world does not like me, so I'll hide within myself." The world does 
not dislike her. It does not know that she exists. She flatters 
herself, if she thinks it does. (Notice that the introvert and the 
person who does nothing tend to develop just the opposite of the 
virtue of humility.) She never gave the world a chance to know her. 
How else except she do things could the world get to know and 
love her?

The introvert is unhappy because she is all wrapped up in herself. 
She has only her poor, little, empty self, a very insufficient source 
of happiness. Because she is unhappy with herself, she fails to 
bring happiness to her husband. She does not like to mix with 
people, even her husband's friends and business associates. A wife 
of this type is no asset to her husband.

The extrovert is happy because she has forgotten about herself. 
She is interested in other things and persons. Other people are 
interested in her. Remember that happy people spread their 
happiness. The happy wife brings happiness to her husband. He 
loves to be in her presence because he is happy there. The 
extrovert fascinates her husband for the simple reason that 
extroverts fascinate everybody.

The introvert, lacking in personality, is a problem to her husband. 
The husband stupid enough to marry one will as a rule not have 
the intelligence, to say nothing of the patience, to be a child 
psychologist. That is what he has to be to deal with his wife.

The introvert takes a few quick looks at the world, finds it very 
frightening, and pulls back into her shell. She might have a pretty 
shell, though, well fashioned by God and pleasing to the eye of 
man. Her future husband becomes infatuated with this beautiful 
shell. He thinks that he is in love with her. That could not be, 
because this blushing little creature is so far back in her shell that 
he could not possibly know her, and not knowing her, he could not 
possibly love her. Oh, yes, he is infatuated with her shell. But it 
takes some shell to keep a man infatuated over the years. As usual, 
the infatuation soon wears off: and then our Dilbert begins to lose 
interest. The wife never comes out of her shell and does things. 
She never develops her personality. So, when Dilbert looks 
hopefully beyond her shell, he finds nary a thing there. There is no 
inner beauty within that body which I have been calling her shell. 
The introvert has little beauty of soul, little personality.

How these girls expect to hold the interest of their husbands is not 
at all clear. Certainly not just by inhaling and exhaling which any 
chimpanzee or chipmunk can do. Soon she becomes a dead weight 
in the life of her disillusioned husband.


MEDIUMS OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

The average girl left to herself and her own resources would find it 
very difficult to develop her personality. Fortunately into her path 
are thrust several mediums for personality development. The 
scope of this chapter limits us to a discussion of only a few of 
these mediums. The first of these is her school.

For many, school is just a hurdle to get over with as little pain as 
possible before life can begin. There is something to be said for 
this attitude. Essentially, school is preparation for the future.

Most girls would prefer to get a hold on that "future" now. 
Moreover, school for too many loses its real purpose. It is not a 
place built just for the acquisition of a lot of factual information. 
It is also a place in which to learn how to live better with their 
neighbor and work out their destiny.

A pig has only one destiny, to be slaughtered and eaten. So, 
farmers do not bother teaching their little pigs to stand on their 
hind legs and do tricks. But suppose that a particularly nice little 
pig did learn many cute tricks. No one would even then speak of 
the little pig's personality. Personality suggests a soul and 
immortality, a something almost intangible reaching out beyond 
the grave.

A human being has only one destiny, to be united with God and 
share His happiness. She is unlike the little pig in another respect. 
She has a free will. She must choose what path she will walk in life, 
whether it lead to the love of God and neighbor as pointed out and 
traveled by Christ or the path of selfishness. In other words, she 
must decide whether the love of God or her own self satisfaction is 
to be the predominant driving force in her life. Whichever she 
chooses, she does so because she thinks that her choice will bring 
her the most happiness. In this connection it behooves us to 
remember the advice of the great Teacher. "He who finds his life 
will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake, will find it."

If a girl wants to be happy with herself, she must get out of 
herself. She must lose herself. It is the type of paradox G. K. 
Chesterton loved. He thought that this advice was the best that 
could be given to Alpine mountain climbers. Chesterton, with his 
tremendous bulk, probably never got anywhere near an Alpine 
mountain climber in action. Yet, he knew what he was talking 
about, when he suggested that they read and ponder these words 
of Christ. Wives tread a path beset with as many dangers as those 
besetting the mountain climber. Well might they reflect on their 
lives in the light of this God given advice. Wives should take this 
advice from the world's most renowned teacher, Christ Himself. To 
be happy here and for all eternity they must forget themselves. 
must get out of themselves, must develop their personality and 
beauty of soul.

High school and college are tremendous occasions of grace put by 
God in the life of a girl. School is probably the greatest 
opportunity for personality development she will ever enjoy. Very 
many do not realize this.

For a good many years I taught in high school. It was annoying to 
see so many girls just hibernating through four years. Some did 
nothing but rush home from school and do all their homework that 
they might be leaders scholastically. It was a Herculean task to 
budge the first type of girl out of her lethargy. The second looked 
sort of sideways at me when I told her to study less and play a 
little more. Both are missing too much of the best school offers.

School provides the opportunity to learn to do very many things 
and to have much fun doing them. Algebra and Geometry have 
their purpose: mental exercise and development. But school 
should be much more than just algebra and the other subjects. The 
so-called extra curricular activities are important, for they give 
girls opportunities to do things. The glee club, the gym class, the 
school athletic teams the Latin club, the dramatic club, and many 
other activities are splendid chances for improving personality.

As I write, the picture comes to my mind of a fat little girl 
complaining that gym was stupid and that she was going to sit it 
out as often as possible. If her criticism was true, the school was 
much at fault, just as much remiss as if it had an incompetent 
French or history instructor. But I am afraid that the fat little girl 
was more interested in sitting. She evidenced about as much life 
as a sack of potatoes and in posture and appearance she easily 
could double as such. She needed the gym like nobody's business. 
Some of the girls poked fun at her because she was overweight. So, 
instead of having loads of fun playing volleyball, badminton and 
basketball, she sat in the locker room and continued her 
phenomenal growth. The gym would have done wonders for her 
figure.

Through the competitive games unlimited means are afforded for 
personality growth. Remember, a girl does not become interesting 
and attractive by sitting, only by doing many things for which 
school offers the opportunity.

As most of us grow older and become less active physically, one of 
our greatest sources of entertainment is intelligent conversation. 
We derive satisfaction from the discussion of current events, of 
problems affecting our daily lives, and of sundry subjects of 
mutual interest.

Too little stress is given today in educational circles to the art of 
conversation. I believe that there are a number of reasons for this 
lack of interest on the part of educators. A group of high school 
girls at recess time usually presents the same picture. All are 
talking; none are listening. Promote talking? Teachers naturally lift 
an eyebrow if one suggests more conversation at their school. Yet 
ninety-nine per cent of all this talk is just chitchat such as "Ja eet? 
No, jews?"

Real conversation is an art. Like any other art it must be cultivated 
and practiced. The voice is an important phase of personality. 
Often the voice alone gives the cue to personality and character of 
a girl. A petulant, or frivolous, or frigid, or nagging young lady 
frequently rings a bell of warning in her voice to interested young 
men who have ears to hear as well as to catch dirt. Likewise, a 
warm hearted and generous woman refined and cultured with a 
well developed personality can tell others of her accomplishments 
simply by speaking a few sentences. "The flute and the psaltery 
make a sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both." 
Ecclesiaticus 40, 21.

Perhaps by this time some find their thoughts wandering from the 
work at hand--namely, self appraisal and consideration of how to 
advance toward the goal of the ideal and desired wife. Maybe some 
are asking by now why they should strive to become this paragon 
of a girl. Too many young men are too stupid anyway to see and 
appreciate in a girl all the qualities of the ideal wife. Isn't a girl 
lucky for that! A girl can thank God that these imbeciles are not 
attracted to her. One of these cigarette sucking simpletons might 
rush her off her feet, and then see with what she would be stuck 
the rest of her life.

It does seem that neurotics attract each other for marriage. I 
suppose it is one more bit of evidence of the old proverb, "Birds of 
a feather flock together." So the girls who develop their 
personalities and acquire the other features of the ideal wife have 
a much better chance of attracting their counterpart, the ideal 
husband. Again, let that all-interesting ideal husband take care of 
himself for a while. Let us get back to our "netting."

Conversation is not a one way street. It connotes the ability to 
listen as well as to talk. Some people make a good audience. They 
stimulate conversation purely by the manner of their attention. 
They are alive, and thus they register. Because they are interested 
they are interesting. They bring out the best in others.

A clever girl can do wonders by the way she listens with animation 
to her boy friend. The boy friend or the husband is only human. 
There will be times when he is going to want to tell "all about it." 
He is loquacious for a change. Then for heaven's sake, let the wife 
give him the stage. Or, perhaps, he is taciturn and yearns for quiet. 
The wise wife senses these various moods of her husband.

I remember a case in which the wife hauled her husband down to 
the Chancery. Her major complaint was that her husband would 
not talk things over with her, would not confide in her. "He just 
never talks with me." This poor woman talked "like a blue streak" 
for an hour and a half. A number of times I tried to break in. At 
each failure I got a knowing look from the husband as much as if 
to say, "Know how you feel. For years I've been trying to get a word 
in edgewise."

There is a theory of counseling based on letting the estranged 
husband and wife talk themselves into their own solution of the 
problems vexing their marital happiness. There are enthusiasts of 
this school of thought who maintain that they can solve any case 
by just letting them talk. I wish they had been in on the case just 
mentioned. I finally had to run from her one day later on, when she 
came down alone to see me. I could not take any more than two 
hours of it. I imagine that she is still talking, whether at her 
husband or not I do not know. How he could stand it, I do not know 
either.

While at school a girl should "make hay while the sun shines." It is 
then that she can acquire and develop ability at conversation. As 
she learns to swim, to play tennis, to figure skate, and to sing, she 
can talk with interest and intelligence about these things. If she 
knows nothing about music, a girl will have to be pretty clever to 
be able to "get away with" talking about music. On the other hand, 
as she develops her personality by learning to do various things, 
she should acquire facility in conversing about these things. If she 
reads good literature, she opens another tremendous potential for 
conversation. True, she must practice, and school affords that 
opportunity not only in the classroom, but even during moments 
of recreation. Practice on your girl friends? Why not? They do on 
you!

Friends have been defined as those between whom there need not 
be conversation. Husband and wife can spend a quiet evening at 
home with a minimum of conversation and be happy and content. 
They are aware of each other's presence, and that is enough. Yet 
intelligent conversation will add immeasurably to their lives. A 
dumb Dora may have her moments; but, if she cannot formulate 
two consecutive and coherent sentences, let us all pray for 
strength for that husband of hers.


VACATION TIME

Another medium for development of personality for the school girl 
is vacation time. Leisure time is most necessary for the acquisition 
of some abilities. When in the third year of high school, I 
unbelievingly heard our English teacher tell us that in no other 
period of our lives would we have more time for reading. He was 
correct. As a matter of fact, I must admit that I read more and 
better literature during high school days than during any 
comparable length of time. So girls, let us be honest and admit 
that there is considerable free time during school years. If it is 
used intelligently, it can be just as important as school time for 
personality development.

Unfortunately, too many "sad sacks" have a rather mean opinion of 
vacation. It is nothing more than a chance to lie in bed every day 
till noon. When I think of the many golden hours I had as a boy 
watching the sun come up over Lake Michigan as I fished or swam 
in the quiet waters of dawn, or of the joy of playing golf at dawn 
with the morning mists still on the grass, I wonder if these chronic 
noonday sleepers have soul to fathom how much of the beauty of 
life they are missing. The beauty of God's creation is all about us. 
They ought to get out of bed and drink in some of it. It can do their 
souls much good. So much of life slips past the habitue of the 
inner spring mattress.


CHURCH GROUPS

A girl's parish church affords another opportunity for personality 
growth. Frequently I have heard girls say that they do not attend 
the young people's club of their church. They went to it a few 
times, but did not "get anything out of" the club. How often I have 
heard that criticism. I always wonder what they expected to "get 
out of" the sodality or young people's group. Was the young 
assistant to put on a three ring circus for their entertainment, 
while they sat like a cabbage in a movie house? Was a prodigy 
similar to Fr. Malachy's miracle to be brought off? Or did they even 
expect a more stupendous work: the pastor himself spinning 
through the hall like a whirling dervish spraying out twenty dollar 
gold coins? Hardly. Who has seen gold coins for ever so long?

These girls, disappointed in the parish group of young people, are 
always looking for what they can get out of things. It never enters 
their imagination that they might contribute to things. Obviously, 
girls with this attitude of sitting back and waiting for life to come 
to them will go away empty handed from any project. If they would 
enter the parish group with the idea of giving themselves to its 
success, in the long run they would be the ones to gain.

Self-seekers always end up holding the bag--an empty one. Those 
who give of themselves carry off the prizes. One of these rewards 
is growth in personality. Girls who give their time, energy, and 
imagination to the parish group cannot fail to promote their 
personality, albeit unconsciously.

A stranger in a big city gets lost in some side street. He asks 
directions to his hotel. Well, your hotel is down this street, then to 
the left two blocks then to the right a block. No, that's a dead end 
street. It runs into the railroad yards. Let's try it this way. Take this 
street we are on till you come to the stop sign. Then turn left for 
three blocks. Then take a right turn till you hit that side street 
running diagonally. No, by golly, that takes you to the bank of the 
river. Say, stranger, I don't think that you can get to your hotel 
from here!

This story often comes to my mind when I am dealing with a 
marriage all washed up because the wife was a total loss in 
personality. Where do they go from here? How are they going to 
get back to a happy marriage from here? Marriage is a contract, in 
which the parties give as well as receive. This poor creature seems 
to have nothing to give.

"He married me. We have children. It's his moral obligation to stay 
with me as my husband." Yes--it is his duty, but not many 
marriages endure on moral obligations. Husband and wife came 
together because they were attracted to each other and learned to 
love each other. This love includes a physical, intellectual, and 
spiritual attraction.

The moral obligation to which our imaginary wife is appealing will 
steady a marriage and carry it through a crisis here and there: but 
happy, successful marriages are not built on moral obligations. 
Too many failures have appealed to moral obligations but have 
done little to merit a contented and loving husband. Many of these 
appeals to the moral law do not have the ring of sincerity, because 
the authors of them paid little or no attention to the moral law 
before the estrangement. For years they threw stones at the 
policeman. Now they are screaming for his help. Besides, the 
policeman is no solution anyway. Their clamor for him is totally in 
vain.

Anybody can make serious mistakes. The saints did. The ideal wife 
with personality may make a serious mistake and thereby bring 
about a temporary alienation of her husband. If she possesses a 
well developed personality, the conflict generally will be resolved 
to mutual satisfaction. Of course, I am supposing that the husband 
is not a basket case and that he has the capacity of forgiveness 
and will say the Our Father from time to time with realization of 
what he is saying.

Personality development is a most interesting process which can 
go on till the grave. We are born with certain temperaments. We 
have no control over whether we are to live with a choleric or 
melancholic temperament, for example. Seldom are these 
temperaments ever changed. Yet, they may be modified. We may 
hold in check and even subdue the bad aspects of our particular 
temperament. Likewise, the good features may be developed and 
encouraged in our daily lives.

In some quarters there is the extreme opinion that we are pretty 
much the victims of our temperament and the first few years of 
our lives. By the time we are six or seven it is fairly well 
determined what sort of lives we shall live. At this early age, so we 
are told, it has already been determined whether we shall be a 
shining light or a public nuisance. The only contingency is 
whether the stage for us will turn out to be Paducah or Keokuk.

The only trouble with this theory is that it runs head on into the 
teachings of Christ, nineteen centuries of Christian living, and our 
own personal experiences. And that is some collision. Unless we 
can develop and improve our characters and personalities, unless, 
with God's help, we are the master of our destiny, Christ should 
never have given the sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the poor 
in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." It seems to be 
natural for little children to be selfish and greedy--anything but 
poor in spirit. Poverty of spirit must be acquired with effort.

St. Francis Xavier's youth had little in it to distinguish him from 
others. Yet he learned to live the beatitude of poverty of spirit to 
the extent of giving himself into slavery, that he might reach the 
China coast and Christianize the natives. St. Francis changed his 
whole way of life, his whole personality because he changed his 
whole attitude of life and program of activity.

Teachers certainly have been struck by evidences of personality 
growth and improvement. Many a little first year high school 
bunny wakes up and becomes a charming and personable lady ten 
years later.

When a girl is born into this life, her personality and character 
might be likened to a solid piece of gold of goblet shape and size. 
Thus, as a baby, the solid goblet cannot hold a single drop of the 
joy of living. Should the baby grow into childhood and womanhood 
with only physical development, this abnormality would eliminate 
the poor creature from normal participation in life. Without growth 
in intelligence and personality and character she would have to be 
cared for as a little baby all the days of her life. Her golden goblet 
remains solid and untouched as it was at birth. However, physical, 
mental and spiritual development usually goes on apace.

As the child begins to contribute consciously to the happiness of 
her parents by being affectionate and helpful, she begins to grind 
out her goblet. As she learns of God and her own purpose in 
existing, as she grows in the virtues and subdues the selfish 
instincts of childhood, real progress is apparent in the goblet. It 
now approaches the appearance of a hollow cup. During 
adolescence and full-blown womanhood the capacity of the goblet 
increases in direct relation to the development of her personality. 
Because she has grown in personality, her capacity for living has 
increased. Her golden goblet has become so delicate that it is 
almost translucent. Her cup is full to overflowing with the joy of 
life. And her greatest happiness comes from being able to share 
her cup of happiness with the man she loves, the husband of the 
desired wife.



3. THE WIFE DESIRED IS PATIENT

Webster's Dictionary has this to say about patience. Patience is 
"uncomplaining endurance of wrongs or misfortunes." Patience 
"denotes self-possession, especially under suffering or 
provocation." It also suggests "quiet waiting for what is expected" 
or persistence in what has been begun. Forbearance, leniency, and 
sufferance are given as synonyms.

Patience is a quality of maturity. Little children are not noted for 
"uncomplaining endurance of wrongs." Mother would begin 
looking for the thermometer should she notice anything 
resembling "quiet waiting for what is expected." It takes a bit of 
living and dodging of the "slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune," before people get enough sense to value patience.

Patience connotes a "self-possession, especially under suffering or 
provocation," and it brings to one a quiet confidence. The patient 
wife is master of her own soul. She, and not every imp to come 
flying into her mind, is in charge of her own fort. Since no one can 
be truly successful without patience, it should be expected that 
the possession of the virtue is a requisite for every desired wife. 
Indeed, no vocation or profession in life requires patience more 
than that of husband and wife. The first reason for this that they 
live in such proximity to each other. They rub elbows day in and 
day out. There is bound to be a little chafing here and there. 
Among saints there would be. Patience is the soothing oil 
preventing the irritations from becoming running sores.

Some years ago I was faced with the necessity of working up a talk 
on the ideal wife. Naturally, I was open for suggestions, 
particularly from a few ideal wives whose friendship I highly prize. 
One evening, as I visited the home of one of these friends. I 
mentioned the task with which I was confronted.

"Mary, if you had to give an hour talk on the ideal wife to high 
school seniors or to a woman's club, what would you discuss?"

Here was the voice of experience talking. I was not asking any air 
scout how to fly that Constellation. The senior pilot of the air lines 
was briefing me now. I was not asking any camp fire girl how to 
whip up that batter of soda biscuit mix. Grandma herself was 
looking over her glasses at me.

I think that it is of interest to point out here that, although she did 
not indicate that she considered patience the most important 
quality of the desired wife, she unhesitatingly suggested it first. 
Not only did she mention patience first, but she also explained 
what she meant by patience in the wife. Notice that the discussion 
deals with the patience required of the wife, not of the mother in 
her relations with her children. A woman is first the wife of her 
husband before she is the mother of his children. Later I hope to 
say a few words concerning the twofold role which the woman 
must play. At present I just want to make it clear that Mary is no 
rattle brain. She was on the ball and stayed there. She was 
explaining what she meant by the patience in the wife and her 
dealings with her husband.

Marriage is not a fifty-fifty proposition. (This of course, is Mary 
talking through my memory.) The wife who enters marriage with 
the misconception that it is has failure lurking just around the 
corner. Often she will think that she is giving her fifty per cent. As 
a matter of fact, it is only fifteen or twenty per cent. On many 
other occasions the husband unconsciously is demanding ninety 
per cent. The fifty per cent proffered falls miserably short. The 
result is two people at loggerheads. A fight begins and love takes a 
beating, if it is not turned out of doors.

The understanding, the sympathy, and the patience required for 
happy living cannot be measured out. The stupid expression 
"marriage is a fifty-fifty deal" implies yardsticks, tape measures, 
half cups, full tablespoons, and the like. Love has nothing to do 
with these things--will not be fenced in by them, for love partakes 
of the very limitlessness of God. A wife's parsimonious measuring 
out of her imagined fifty per cent produces many serious fights. 
She wins these fights too and loses her husband.

Let us illustrate the above by concrete examples. The wife was 
getting supper ready. John was fighting the traffic on his way 
home from work. She was humming softly as she busied herself 
contentedly about the kitchen. He was muttering loudly the red 
light blues. She felt fine. He was half sick and out of sorts. Things 
had not been going well at work. He was upset and unwittingly 
looking for a fight.

As he entered the house and gave Mary a little hug and kiss, she 
noticed that he looked tense and jumpy. A few minutes later she 
could hear him scolding one of the children. The storm warnings 
should have been flying by now. They had better steer clear of him 
tonight.

Before the family was called to the supper table, Mary had been 
fully on guard. Unless she was very mistaken her husband was 
going to demand much more than fifty per cent somewhere along 
the evening. So the measuring devices, the half cups and full 
tablespoons were behind her for this evening. The meal was 
already prepared. She would not use them on her husband. She 
would not measure out her patience and understanding. Her 
husband was definitely off color this evening. She would give him 
her all. No matter what he said, she would pass it off.

The supper got off to as good a start as could have been expected 
with the cloud hanging over the table. Soon one of the children 
massacred table etiquette in such manner as to cause Emily Post to 
wince. Before her husband could draw in sufficient breath to let 
out a blast at the culprit, she quickly took the wind out of his sail 
by firmly correcting the child. Before the dessert appeared, she 
took in her stride a caustic remark about the quality of the pot 
roast and a criticism leveled at her through one of her children.

Mary was nobody's dish rag. She had a lot of fire and spirit. She 
could have stood up to him that night, "let him have it," and have 
had a fight which she might have won, or, at least in which she 
would have held her own. But, did anyone ever win a fight of this 
kind?

This ideal wife had made up her mind to carry her husband 
through the evening, come what might. He was not himself. 
Tomorrow would be another day. If he had been physically sick in 
bed and needed her care, would she have given only fifty per cent? 
Of course not. She would have nursed and lavished upon him all 
the warmth of her nature. Well, he was sick that night--sick in mind 
and spirit. He needed her intelligent, loving and patient 
consideration. She would have considered herself a very shallow 
person to have reacted otherwise. She was in love with her 
husband that night too, unreasonable though he was.

A few weeks later the tables were turned. She was the one who was 
at wits end with herself. She started the day with a headache and 
things went from bad to worse. It was a rainy day, and for some 
unfathomable reason the school shut its doors on the children. 
They were under her feet all day. Often she had to act as referee in 
their squabbles. As the afternoon wore on toward supper time, she 
was becoming conditioned for more adult opposition.

An unsuspecting husband made his entry. He was back to his little 
castle in the suburb with roses round the door (metaphorically 
speaking) and babies on the floor (literally speaking).

During the meal Mary "blew her top" about something. Oh yes, the 
car did not start that afternoon. The battery or something must 
have been dead. Some junk! It was time they had a new car.

So it was a junk, was it? John could think of the days of work it had 
taken to buy that old bus a few years previous. It was still a good 
car. What did women know about cars anyway ? There ought to 
have been a law against women ever----. There is no future in this 
kind of thought, so John quickly banished the hideous little devil 
from his mind. Mary was worked up tonight. He would have to be 
cautious. Did he defend his car against his wife? John was a little 
too sharp for that. He jumped on the band wagon and lambasted 
the car too. Yes. we would have to do something about that 
nuisance. He felt like going out then and burning it up. He knew 
that by the time they got to the dishes, she would have forgotten 
all about the car.

Mary purred through the rest of the meal contentedly with that 
wonderful feeling that her husband was all for her. Together they 
stood against the whole world.

Suppose that John had been a little thick between the ears and that 
he took exceptions to her remarks about the car and defended the 
car against his wife. A fight would have ensued. Feelings would 
have been hurt. And there was danger that their tempers would 
have swept them on to the name calling stage. Once this has been 
reached, real harm frequently has been done to a marriage.

Mary finished her explanation of what she meant by patience by 
saying that she and her husband had never had a fight in the 
twelve years of married life. Then she added what I thought was 
the epitome of her whole conversation by saying that she and her 
husband did not intend to have any fights. This determination not 
to fight was indicative of their intelligence and maturity. Surely it 
was one of the factors contributing to the happy stability of their 
marriage.

This couple have had arguments and disagreements I believe that I 
have been in on a few warm ones. An argument is not a fight. 
People with minds of their own will not always see eye to eye on 
every phase of their daily lives. Viewpoints will vary and 
disagreements will result even as to whether or not junior should 
have a crew hair cut. But let us not make junior a ward of the 
divorce court because husband and wife cannot agree on the 
proper length of junior's hair. After all, it is not that important.

Arguments and disagreements degenerate into fights, when ill-
feeling, name-calling and bitterness come into the picture. The 
ideal wife, fortified with the virtue of patience, sets her face 
against such loss of harmony. Whatever be the cost she wisely 
realizes that her effort at peace is worth the price.

No good comes from fights in married life. I have been asked 
whether it is not a good idea for husband and wife to have a fight 
once in a while. The air is thus cleared. The very young, theorizing 
about this, often add that it is so sweet when they make up. In 
connection with this question one inquirer quoted Bishop Fulton 
Sheen as saying that a couple never really know how much they 
love each other until they have made up after their first fight. 
Nothing was said about how many found out how little they loved 
each other and never made up.

It is very true that sometimes good comes out of evil. Yet, how 
insane it is to seek or even permit avoidable evil, on the chance 
some good might come of it. Fights among married people are evil 
things and bring untold misery into lives. So many broken 
marriages have come before me in which there was no third party, 
no drinking, no in-law trouble, no major difficulty. They just 
fought. So often people are less mature than their children, whom 
they have brought into the world to endure their bad tempers.

Fights begin between human beings because of pride. We have a 
will of our own. When we do not get our way pride suffers. Like 
children we want to fight the opposition to our will. So far we have 
no control of our reactions. We are made this way. If we are adults, 
however, we have learned by bitter experience that our pride is the 
surest destroyer of happiness and love. Unless we are psycho-
masochists, we crush our insurgent pride and prevent ourselves 
the stupid and dubious pleasure of hurting the one who has stung 
our pride.

Once a fight has begun between man and wife it is clear that one 
or the other must win the struggle against pride. One or the other 
must curb the desire to win the empty victory. If the wife makes 
the first effort at reconciliation, her humility will make it difficult 
for the husband to nurse his pride. Pride cannot face up to 
humility. It is shamed out of existence.

Even when husband and wife make up completely after a fight, a 
fight is still unfortunate. Fights leave scars. The wound heals, but 
there ever remains a scar in the mind. I have had many estranged 
married people tell me that their partners did this or that to them 
twenty-five or thirty years ago. Happy years had intervened 
between the fight and the present estrangement. But they could 
not forget, even if they had forgiven.

The wife desired meditates deeply on the hatefulness of fighting. 
She has made up her mind to suffer anything rather than fight and 
thus wound her husband. Remember that there is always the 
danger that we begin to hate whom we hurt for the same reason 
that we begin to love whom we help.



4. THE WIFE DESIRED IS A PHYSICAL BEING

Some years ago a questionnaire was published in the Religious 
Bulletin of the University of Notre Dame. It listed some fifty 
virtues, qualities of mind and body and accomplishments. The list 
included such virtues as purity, humility, and justice; such 
qualities of the mind as tolerance and humor, of the body as figure 
and beauty: such accomplishments as skill at tennis, swimming 
and music. Five hundred young men were asked to choose one 
virtue or quality or accomplishment which they would have above 
all others in their future wives.

Most of the choices were sensible and mature. However, out of five 
hundred young men we could expect some to be immature if not 
juvenile. I remember that one demanded of his future wife that she 
be an expert swimmer. He would have this above all else in his 
companion for life. He must have been an habitue of the 
swimming pool; perhaps he was on the swimming team. Evidently, 
he could visualize his wife swimming along through life by his 
side.

We should not be surprised that a dozen or two were not too 
serious or intelligent in their selections. You might not agree with 
the remaining choices. Although you might not decide on honesty, 
for example, yet you would probably hesitate in passing up this 
virtue.

Well over three hundred of these young men picked the virtue of 
purity. Instinctively young men realize that the virtue of purity is 
a prerequisite for marriage. The girl who lacks it is a bad risk for 
marriage, whatever else be her assets. No self-respecting young 
man will seek out for his wife a girl who has been pawed over by 
every Tom, Dick and Harry in the neighborhood.

A girl who develops the reputation for being "fast" with the boys 
will win dates from inconsequential young men. She will have what 
she thinks is a good time for a few years. But she is wasting her 
time as far as finding a good mate for life. The worthwhile young 
man looking for the girl to be his inspiration, his faithful 
companion, and the mother of his children, will pass her up; or, if 
he should unknowingly become acquainted with her, will on 
learning of her real worth, drop her like a hot potato. Allow me to 
say that this is not just theory. Remember the three hundred men 
at Notre Dame who chose purity in their future wives above all 
else.

Lest anyone need more convincing, it should be mentioned that 
authorities on family life are in agreement that violation of purity 
to the extent of sexual experience before marriage is a handicap 
for a future married life. No one says that the handicap cannot be 
overcome. Yet, it remains a handicap, and the girl who is preparing 
herself to be the ideal wife heeds the voice of experience and 
avoids this obstacle to future happiness.

These opinions are held by some with no religious convictions 
about purity. Some of them do not seem overly concerned about 
religion. Their experience in dealing with marriage problems tells 
them that lack of purity often wrecks a marriage. This is their 
observation, and it is honestly stated.

By nature a girl is strongly inclined to modesty. It becomes her and 
enhances her charm. "Depart not from a wise and good wife, whom 
thou hast gotten in the fear of the Lord, for the grace of her 
modesty is above gold." Eccu. VII, 21. A good home life, her 
religion, and her school promote this natural instinct and carry it 
along to the full-blown, delicate flower of purity. It is a drastic 
change in the life of a girl for her to abandon, even temporarily, 
the virtue of purity. The cause must be considerable. One great 
cause for loss of purity among girls of high school and college age 
is an inferiority complex.

Take Hattie for example. She was not a ravishing beauty. Yet, she 
was attractive enough; or at least she could have been if she 
worked along the correct lines. Hattie missed a prom or two. She 
was being passed over by the boys. Visions of her old maid aunt 
haunted her. Panic set in and she lost confidence in herself and in 
the future. She began throwing herself at the boys. The word got 
around. And it was not long before she was receiving the attention 
of several of the most odious young reprobates of her 
neighborhood. You may be sure that these characters who 
contributed to the destruction of a girl's virtue would not hesitate 
to ruin her reputation.

Hattie was now getting the attention which she craved. She now 
had dates, but she was a marked young lady. And time was quickly 
running out. Opportunities for a happy married life were growing 
dimmer with each succeeding "fast date." Remember the choice of 
the young men at Notre Dame?

It is obvious that Hattie's frantic efforts to have dates were her 
undoing. She lacked confidence in herself, the quiet confidence, 
which comes to the girl who is developing her personality. It is not 
necessarily true that the girl who has the most dates during high 
school years will catch the best husband in the shortest time. This 
is especially true if she compromises her purity in order to acquire 
these dates.

The young lady who abandons purity or allows it to become 
tarnished sells herself much too cheaply. She is not preparing 
herself to become the ideal wife. In fact, she is frittering away her 
chances of becoming a wife at all.

How stupid it is to think that purity will scare away young men. If 
a girl is a "wall flower," it is not because of her purity. It is in spite 
of it. Purity of itself attracts. The introvert has the makings of a 
"wall flower." While the introvert sits on the side lines, she has 
plenty of time to reflect. Often her reflections indicate a not overly 
generous soul. If she attributes her own lack of popularity to the 
virtue of purity, to what does she attribute the popularity of many 
of her acquaintances? She refuses or is too dull to see that it is 
their vivacity. They are interesting people and can have a good 
time and can promote fun for others.

"Ah! sweet mystery of life, at last I've found thee. Ah! I know at last 
the secret of it all . . . For 'tis love and love alone the world is 
seeking." No truer words were ever sung than these in the famous 
love song. The only excuse for our existence is the love of God. For 
this He made us, to love and be loved.

The virtue of purity is not an end in itself. It is the guardian of 
love. As we ascend toward God through His creatures, we are 
waylaid by a host of enemies. One of these is lust of the flesh. Its 
most subtle and overpowering assault is to masquerade as love. 
Purity guides us around this booby trap. The path it takes us over 
at times is stony. This is particularly true for young people who 
are seriously courting or are engaged.

To love a person is to wish him well, to hope for and plan for and 
work for his happiness with all your being. A real Christian wishes 
all mankind happiness and thereby fulfills the great precepts of 
Christ to love his neighbor. This love of neighbor, all embracing 
and including the little Pigmy in far off Africa and even our 
enemies, is a spiritual thing. It emanates from the soul, from the 
mind and the will.

We know that the opposite sexes were made by God to attract each 
other. This attraction in itself is not love, unless it includes the 
spiritual side of our nature. Many people physically attract each 
other even to the extent of marriage. Yet, many of them are not 
really in love. They do not seem capable of love. They are too self-
centered. Love is just the opposite. It looks outside for self, forgets 
self. The marriage built on physical attraction alone will last just 
as long as the infatuation lasts, and this generally is not very long.

For a normal, happy marriage there should be both the spiritual 
and physical attraction between husband and wife. Ordinarily, love 
begins for a young girl when she becomes well enough acquainted 
with a young man to develop a spiritual affinity with him. She 
admires his qualities and abilities. She likes his attitude toward 
life in general. She begins to feel at ease, at home in his presence. 
Then other things begin to happen. A simple phone call brings a 
flutter to her heart. Her pulse quickens when he calls at her home. 
She has eyes for no one but him.

With reason she wonders whether she is in love. Her doubts will 
vanish when she reaches the point of growth in love where all her 
being reaches out for him in the effort to bring him happiness. Her 
own whims and desires fade into the background. His happiness is 
her only real concern.

Obviously, this early stage of love, undeveloped and untested by 
actual married life though it be, poses a real problem for engaged 
couples. Their spiritual love for each other readily flows over into 
the physical side of their nature. These emotions quickly enkindle 
the sexual impulses. Here the virtue of purity, the watch-dog of 
love, must come into play to steady the two lovers.

Champions are not made overnight. Long and tedious practice 
must precede real success. The daily exercise of purity over the 
years is required to build up the virtue or facility of purity. It will 
be a safeguard for these engaged couples when they need it most 
in times of emotional stress. Intelligent reflection in moments of 
calm will show them the foolishness of hasty desires and the 
danger to their love and respect for each other in stealing 
privileges from their future married lives. The period of 
engagement is a challenge to the sincerity of their love. It is a test 
of sacrifice and self denial, without which loves flies out the 
window. How often the nascent flower of love has been choked off 
by the rank weeds of impurity.

The sham and insincerity of pretending to be better than one is 
renders the hypocrite obnoxious to all. The failing is more 
common after middle age, when the tendency of hiding sins and 
blemishes of character grows. Young people are more likely to be 
the victims of another hypocrisy, the pretense of being worse than 
they actually are.

I saw so much of this when I was overseas with the Air Forces 
during the war. Many of the young fliers, half-way through their 
allotted missions, seemed to feel it necessary to impress the 
recent arrivals from the States as to how reckless they were with 
the female population of Paris. With divers winks and knowing 
looks these self-styled old reprobates (many were only nineteen or 
twenty) would have the young lambies believe that they had 
plumbed the depths of Pigalle from one end to the other.

I suppose that we should not begrudge the young blades the foible 
of parading as overwhelming lady killers. Yet, half of these fancied 
"wolves" would find themselves hard put later on in married life to 
fill the bill emotionally for all but the most feckless of wives. 
Obviously, only the very young would be taken in by this display 
of masculinity. But that is just the trouble. These hypocrites were 
dealing with the young. The hypocrisy of pretending to be better 
than reality hurts no one. The hypocrisy of pretending to be evil 
has led many a person into serious sin. The power of example is 
prodigious, and what a calamity it is when failures in the virtue of 
purity have followed such a will o' the wisp as the feigned example 
of the hypocrite.


THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF MARRIED LIFE

With marriage a few mental adjustments must be made concerning 
the virtue of purity. To project virginal ideals of purity into 
married life is unfair to both her husband and to herself as well as 
harmful for a girl.

Marriage is an institution of God, in which two people cooperate 
with Him in the creation of the human race. God could have 
created all of us as He created Adam and Eve. He chose a more 
wondrous and mysterious way. Male and female were created and 
so constituted by God with faculties and propensities as to be able 
and want to reproduce themselves. Thus the function of sex is just 
as important as the continuation of the human race. God has 
placed an attraction for each other in the male and female. It is 
natural for this attraction to lead to love and marriage. The 
manifest purpose of marriage is, therefore, the begetting and 
rearing of children.

The obligations incumbent upon and the problems arising from 
marriage are limitless. To compensate for them God has attracted 
pleasure to sex, psychological as well as physical. The pleasure of 
sex is consequently no more an end in itself than is the pleasure of 
eating. God did not gives us stomachs and appetites for the sake of 
pleasure, although He did join pleasure to this function of self 
preservation.

Sex pleasure is God given and, therefore, to be gratefully accepted 
in the normal and natural relations of man and wife. Because so 
much of the sensuous world has gone mad in its misuse of sex, 
there is no reason for the Christian to be in the least ashamed of 
what God has graciously given. In this regard it is worth 
mentioning that in the early centuries of Christianity the Church 
had to condemn the heretical teaching that sex pleasure in itself 
was sinful and, therefore marriage was to be avoided.

Concerning the subject of sexual relations it should be indicated at 
the outset that it is utterly silly to imagine that the newly-weds 
should have a romantic and amorous technique at their finger tips. 
That will come only with time, with living together and having 
children, raising them and making a home. Their tender solicitude 
for each other through the years brings a maturity to their love 
that has nothing of staleness in it and everything of the refreshing 
newness of eternal things to come. Thus, any girl who is well 
disposed toward marriage should have confidence that she will 
sufficiently adjust herself to meet the requirements of the ideal 
wife, as far as sexual relations are concerned.

The ideal wife is a happy wife. She enjoys marriage. It is almost a 
maxim that in order to be successful at anything a person must be 
contented and happy in what she is doing. It is difficult to imagine 
a successful and ideal doctor who is miserable in the practice of 
medicine. No wife will be happy unless she is properly disposed 
toward marriage.

Two glasses of the same size are equally well disposed toward 
receiving the same amount of water if placed under a water faucet. 
If one glass is half filled with cement, then it will be only half 
disposed toward holding the same amount of water. Suppose a 
water tight cover of some type is fastened to the top of the glass. 
In this case the glass would not be disposed at all for fulfilling its 
purpose.

From all outward appearances two girls may approach marriage 
with equal chances of being successful wives. Both have average 
intelligence. Both are attractive physically and personality-wise. 
Yet, one may be poorly disposed. She may have some mental 
quirks or phobias about marriage which constitute a real obstacle 
to prevent the normal excitement and happiness of married life 
from flowing into her being. The wife who is not receiving the 
normal, natural enjoyment and satisfaction from her husband 
through her own fault will drift into some form of neurosis that 
will threaten the very stability of the union. At best she scarcely 
will be an ideal mate.

All too frequently wives bemoan the fact that they do not get any 
satisfaction out of marriage. Their husbands have all the 
enjoyment, they think. Husbands with this type of wife are not 
beside themselves in the enjoyment of marriage. Soon these 
women begin to feel that it is a man's world. They have all the joy. 
This is a dangerous attitude. Besides the judgment is not true. 
These wives will devise ways and means to even up the score. Most 
often an unhappy marriage, if not a broken one, is the result.

In dealing with failures in marriage I often find that many never 
did enjoy relations with their husbands. Very few knew of any 
physical reason. The great majority were laboring under some 
erroneous concept or vexed themselves and their husbands with 
some phobia or other, fear of conception and children, for 
example.

The ideal wife has enough common sense to realize that marriage 
relations are normal. God-designed expressions of love between 
man and wife. To experience a sense of shame or to imagine that 
the marital act is unlady-like is utterly ridiculous. The deep sense 
of purity and modesty of girlhood days must be adjusted to a new 
mode of life. She will have many opportunities to practice the 
virtue of purity in her married life.

Since marriage relations are holy acts in the sight of God, all 
activity of love making and caressing between husband and wife 
in preparation for the marital act is good, if the act is completed. 
Efforts at birth control are the only unnatural and sinful acts in 
connection with marriage relations.

The husband and wife who are motivated by love for each other 
and thus strive through their sexual relations to bring to the other 
happiness, pleasure, and contentment will receive as reward for 
their unselfishness the greatest measure of joy God gives to man 
and woman on this earth. The ideal wife thanks God that He gives 
her a capacity for sexual enjoyment. If she has a husband 
intelligent and good enough to promote during their married lives 
this capacity, she has additional reason to be grateful.

Another erroneous idea ill-disposing a young wife for happiness in 
marriage is the concept that it is never proper for her to be the 
aggressor in any emotional display. She must never appear to be 
eager. The husband is always supposed to be the Don Juan 
sweeping her off her feet with loving attentions. All the while she 
coolly and with great decorum maintains an affected, 
dispassionate front. With patronizing air she submits, for his sake 
only, to his caresses. Such women are fundamentally dishonest, 
not accepting the fact that they are human and in need of 
affection as well as their husbands.

I find it very discouraging to deal with these prim and prissy little 
wives so small that they could high jump under a dresser and 
possessing faces never once lit up with the ecstasy of love. This 
matter of affection is not a one-way street. The normal husband 
would like to see some signs of response to his efforts at affection 
toward his wife. If he seldom or never gets it, how can he be 
blamed if he wonders about his wife's love for him? Is he just her 
social security number?

The desired wife has a mischievous streak in her and can be even 
a little "naughty" with her husband. Some "dead pans" become so 
blase about their marriages that they never flirt with their 
husbands. They miss a lot of fun in life, and little wonder it is that 
their husbands wear a "hang dog" look.

Another erroneous concept with a copious history of disharmony 
in married life is the assumption on the part of the wife that the 
emotional needs and capacities of her husband and herself are 
equal. Seldom is this true. The difference of temperament, to say 
nothing of sex, often calls for sympathetic understanding on the 
part of the wife. The ideal wife is willing and able to adjust herself 
to the emotional needs and wants of her husband. For example, if 
she is of an affectionate and warm nature, she should realize that 
perhaps her husband simply is unable to keep up with her, much 
as he might want to. He is more limited by his nervous system 
from frequent and prolonged display of emotion.

Some wives spend too much time reading over romantic and even 
erotic novels. These dubious heroes are generally Casanovas and 
gigolos with no counterpart in the everyday world of successful 
husbands. The young wife who is disappointed because her 
husband does not measure up to these dreamworld standards of 
romantic endeavor must come down to earth. More often than not 
she fails to realize how well off she is to have the type of husband 
who is a good, sound, responsible man. Perhaps he is not the 
absolute ideal from the romantic viewpoint. The intelligent wife 
will see the favorable aspects in her husband's nature, and the 
clever wife will patiently and lovingly work for the gradual 
development of her husband that he come to better meet her 
emotional and sexual needs.

It is not surprising that young ladies of pre-marriage age imagine 
that any future husband of theirs will be expert at love making. 
This misconception could easily come from the observation of the 
aggressiveness and "know it all" attitude of young men. Actually 
both wife and husband will have much to learn together.

In this connection there comes to my memory the painful 
recollection of a young wife estranged from her husband. She was 
of good, God-fearing parents. She lacked nothing in her 
environment from a religious and educational standpoint. Her 
girlhood was virtuous and exemplary. Friends and relatives 
reasonably assumed for her a successful marriage. Presently her 
whereabouts are unknown. In shame she left all behind her after 
her infidelity. Although her husband was something of a knuckle 
head, fundamentally he was a "right guy." His last mistake before 
her disappearance was in excoriating her in the vilest language. In 
his lonely bitterness he began to see that he overreached himself. 
She was a vivacious young woman, strong in her feelings and in 
need of a real man for a husband. He was not very demonstrative, 
and I do not believe that he actually understood her hunger for 
affection. In any case he did not quite fill the bill.

The young wife experienced a growing sense of frustration for the 
first two years. Then during the last two years of their married 
lives she began to sulk. This later attitude put the finishing 
touches to their marriage. Instead of lovingly and patiently 
encouraging the development of her husband's love-making 
potential to complement the needs of her warm nature, she 
withdrew within herself in disappointment and resentment. 
Moreover there was little earnest effort on her part to adapt herself 
to her husband's emotional nature. Perhaps he never could have 
risen to the heights of the greatest romantic lover of all time. Yet, 
if she had helped him and had given him a chance, he could have 
brought happiness and stability into her life.

Offhand I cannot think of a single successful marriage in which 
there has not been mature, intelligent adjustments on the part of 
both husband and wife. Very few wives will find marriage exactly 
as they had visualized it. The actuality is always somewhat 
different from the story book picture or the girlhood dream. By 
this I do not mean that marriage is less than what was expected. It 
may turn out to be worlds more than what was looked for. In all 
cases it will be quite different.

Regarding the measure of happiness to be expected, a well-known 
ritual of marriage has this to say, "If true love and sacrifice guide 
your every action, you can expect the greatest measure of earthly 
happiness that may be allotted to man in this vale of tears."

Except in matters of principle and questions of right and wrong, 
the ideal wife is not going to hang on to her preconceived concepts 
of marriage. She will not try to put her husband into a mold, which 
she has built up from romantic novels read during girlhood. That 
plain, prosaic husband of hers is a much more real and interesting 
being than the fleshless, soulless figment of the imagination, to 
which she wants to cling. He has a spark of the divine waiting to be 
fanned into a flame of love. The soul of a human being with all its 
potentialities is not developed in a vacuum. Only through love 
does the human soul begin to really live. And love requires at least 
two beings. Only through concourse with his fellow man will love 
come into being in the soul of a husband. Who can play the role of 
this second party in the life of her husband better than the wife?

The ideal wife is in love with her husband. Therefore her whole 
nature reaches out to him in an effort to bring him happiness. Her 
joy in life can come o