eived from his sisters, besides those which he has
a right to expect from a wife.

I should advise woman to shun a dragon of virtue like fire: she should
prefer a dragoon rather. A man may be good, but he must not overdo it.
He that has no wickedness is too good for this world; not even a nun
could endure him. Fancy, my dear lady, a man being shocked by you! The
male prig is the abomination of the earth, and should be the pet
aversion of women.

Let a man avoid marrying a woman who has won the applause of the
public. The life of a successful woman unfits her for matrimony and its
peaceful joys. Of course there are, and I have known, many exceptions.
If you marry a well-known singer, you will soon discover yourself in
the act of carrying her roll of music. Ah, if you are a great singer
yourself, well and good! But then, take care that if you both appear at
the same concert, one does not get more encores than the other, or
peace will be destroyed.

Don't marry women who have big bouquets of roses and orchids sent to
them, or your daily little bunch of violets or lilies-of-the-valley
will soon run the risk of being despised.

CHAPTER VI

MAXIMS FOR THE MARRIED MAN

Keep your wife in order--How to deal with her (confidential).

If at the beginning of his married life a man cannot have enough
control over himself to see that his wife does not get her own way in
everything, and that he does not make himself her abject slave, he will
never be able to recover his liberty, and he is done for, condemned to
subjection for the rest of his natural life. The beginning of wisdom is
to keep your wife in order.

No Government has ever been known to successfully suppress, or even
reduce, any liberty or privilege previously granted to the people. If a
man capitulates on the threshold of matrimony, he will never be able to
recover one inch of the ground he has surrendered. In fact, a man has
to be as careful to avoid spoiling a wife as he would a child, and that
for her sake as well as for his own.

To be happy, for instance, a woman does not require the constant
presence of her husband. On the contrary, she will enjoy his company
very much more if he and she are not always thrown together.

I know men who, from the beginning of their married lives, visited
their clubs, enjoyed men's company, while remaining very devoted to
their wives and making them very happy.

But if a man waits ten years to decide on belongin