The Marriage Book (31 page)

There are many unions in which the wife falls down in one or more of these relationships but which do not end in divorce. Such a situation does not necessarily mean that the husband has ceased to love his wife, or that he wants their life together to come to an end. He may find her perfectly satisfactory as mother and home-maker, and be content to get his sexual satisfaction elsewhere, as is the case in so many French marriages. It is when the husband finds another mate who satisfies him as both a physical and a social companion that the marriage is in extreme jeopardy.

Few women, however, unless sexually cold, will be content with a half-way or one third ownership. They will want the marriage to be a success on every plane. Some of them fail to make it so because they do not realize that marriage is a partnership into which each should be willing to put all his capital constantly and to take out only small dividends until the business is a going concern.

A wife who fails in this way is the one who weeps on the slightest pretext. She tries to tie her husband with water, to hold his love by making his attitude toward her one of continual emotional outpouring. She endeavors to overcome indifference by arousing pity and anxiety. She weeps if he refuses her a fur coat; she cries if he stays late at the office. Obeisance has been paid to this type of woman by a restaurant in the down-town district of a southern city, which puts up boxes called by the men who buy them “Hush darlings.” They contain hot fried oysters and other delights, and are designed as peacemakers for men working late at their offices. On the top of each box is printed “Hush, darling. Look what I brought you from Schmidt’s.”

HAL DAVID

“WIVES AND LOVERS,” 1963

Hal David (1921–2012) wrote these lyrics for a movie by the same name; the song was the hit, recorded by, among others, Dionne Warwick, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Jack Jones, who won a 1964 Grammy for his version.

The composer was David’s usual partner, Burt Bacharach, with whom David wrote dozens of other hits of the sixties and seventies, notably “Walk On By,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and “What’s New Pussycat?”

Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, Soon he will open the door.

Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger You needn’t try anymore.

For wives should always be lovers, too.

Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.

I’m warning you.

Day after day there are girls at the office

And men will always be men.

Don’t send him off with your hair still in curlers.

You may not see him again.

For wives should always be lovers, too.

Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.

He’s always here.

Hey, little girl, better wear something pretty, Something you’d wear to go to the city,

And dim all the lights, pour the wine, start the music.

Time to get ready for love.

Oh, time to get ready, time to get ready,

Time to get ready for love.

MARABEL MORGAN

THE TOTAL WOMAN
, 1973

Like Helen Andelin the decade before (see
Husbands, How to Get
), Marabel Morgan (1937–) offered wives not just personal instruction and a bestselling book, but eventually an entire movement—with similar themes. A born-again Christian who quoted the Bible often in her hugely popular book and its several sequels, Morgan believed that marital happiness came from wives submitting to, usually while cosseting, their husbands. She was famously credited with the suggestion that wives might pique their husbands’ interest by greeting them after a long day’s work wearing only Saran Wrap. In fact, that particular ploy was a suggestion made by one of Morgan’s many readers, but Morgan herself had gotten the ball rolling with a number of other strategies, some suggested in this passage.

Marabel married Charles Morgan, an attorney, in 1964; they had two daughters.

Take a few extra moments for that bubble bath tonight. If your husband comes home at 6:00, bathe at 5:00. I know it sounds ludicrous if you have two little ones and four hungry mouths to feed by 6:07. That’s my situation, but the bubble bath is part of my schedule anyway. Let the little ones’ eyes gaze if they must, but treat yourself to a warm, sweet-smelling, relaxing bath. In preparing for your six o’clock date, lie back and let go of the tensions of the day. Think about that special man who’s on his way home to you. . . .

One morning, Charlie remarked about the pressures of the day that lay ahead of him. All day I remembered his grim face as he drove away. Knowing he would feel weary and defeated, I wondered how I could revive him when he came home.

For an experiment I put on pink baby-doll pajamas and white boots after my bubble bath. I must admit that I looked foolish and felt even more so. When I opened the door that night to greet Charlie, I was unprepared for his reaction. My quiet, reserved, non-excitable husband took one look, dropped his briefcase on the doorstep, and chased me around the dining-room table. We were in stitches by the time he caught me, and breathless with that old feeling of romance. Our little girls stood flat against the wall watching our escapade, giggling with delight. We all had a marvelous evening together, and Charlie forgot to mention the problems of the day.

Have you ever met your husband at the front door in some outrageously sexy outfit? I can hear you howl, “She’s got to be kidding. My husband’s not the type, and besides, we’ve been married twenty-one years!”

Nope, I’m not kidding,
especially
if you’ve been married twenty-one years. Most women
dress to please other women rather than their own husbands. Your husband needs you to fulfill his daydreams.

I have heard women complain, “My husband isn’t satisfied with just me. He wants lots of women. What can I do?” You can be lots of different women to him. Costumes provide variety without him ever leaving home. I believe that every man needs excitement and high adventure at home. Never let him know what to expect when he opens the front door; make it like opening a surprise package. You may be a smoldering sexpot, or an all-American fresh beauty. Be a pixie or a pirate—a cowgirl or a showgirl. Keep him off guard.

I

INDIVIDUALITY

RAINER MARIA RILKE

LETTER TO EMANUEL VON BODMAN, 1901

The mystical, existentialist streak in the writings of Austro-Hungarian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) has ensured their continued popularity, as has his eloquent affirmation of the solitary life of the writer, especially in his posthumously published
Letters to a Young Poet
. After a love affair with a married intellectual (formerly courted by Friedrich Nietzsche, coincidentally), Rilke married a sculptor named Clara Westhoff with the hopes he expressed in this letter. They had a daughter eight months later, and separated amicably the following year.

Emanuel von Bodman was a poet and friend of Rilke from Munich.

What matters in marriage, as I feel it, is not to create a swift communion by tearing down and overcoming all barriers, but a good marriage is more one in which each appoints the other guardian of his loneliness and shows him thus the greatest confidence he has to bestow. A joint life for two people is an impossibility, and, where it seems to exist, it is a limitation, a reciprocal agreement which robs one or both partners of his or their fullest freedom and development. But, presupposing the realization that between the nearest people there must exist boundless distances, there arises the possibility of the growth of a wonderful life side by side when it proves
feasible to love the distance between them in that it gives them the ability to see one another always in their entirety against a vast sky.

KAHLIL GIBRAN

THE PROPHET
, 1923

Creator of poetry, short stories, novels, paintings, and sculptures, Lebanese author and artist Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) is by far best known for having written
The Prophet
, a collection of poetic and spiritual meditations offered by Almustafa, a fictional holy man, as his parting wisdom to followers. The messages of
The Prophet
are just universal enough to have appealed to an enormous and continuing audience in more than forty languages. In 2008, writing in
The New Yorker
, Joan Acocella pointed out that Gibran is the third-bestselling poet of all time (behind only Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu). The book hit the mainstream amid the counterculture movement of the 1960s, and has been sustained by New Age and nonsectarian readers ever since, which may be one reason that several of its passages have become popular readings at wedding ceremonies.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

MARLEY KLAUS

“25 YEARS,” 2012

Marley Klaus (1957–) is a writer and former
60 Minutes
producer who in 2006 began a blog called
The Heathen Learns
, dedicated to learning about the seven major religious traditions. She and her husband—film, TV, and theater director Kevin Dowling—married in 1987 and have two sons.

When I see that look on Kevin’s face just after my dad walked me up the aisle, it makes me want to cry. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen that look and heard the words that
come with it. That look is one of the reasons we are still together today. It’s also what almost did us in.

Kevin Dowling and Marley Klaus

There’s this idea about romantic love, about finding your “soul mate” as that man of mine surely is, that makes us think that our lives should be entwined, enmeshed, our happiness entrusted to another. I think that idea does more to undermine good relationships than almost any other. The underbelly of that notion is: so, if I’m not happy—and who is all the time?—it is my partner’s responsibility to at least try to make me feel better, happier.

I won’t speak for other people but, in our determination to put how we felt about each other into practice, we kinda got it wrong for a while. In the misguided attempt to make the other happier, we contorted ourselves and our lives into painful and unrecognizable pretzel shapes—or felt guilty when we didn’t or couldn’t. We thought we were responsible
for
each other instead of
to
each other. The result? We had about two years of hell that stripped our relationship right down to its foundation. I remember standing on a street, looking across the top of a car at him and thinking: I am willing to lose this but I am not willing to not be myself anymore.

I was lucky. He was braver and more determined than I was. He took the first steps to break our dynamic. At the time, it felt like he was retreating to his corner to work on his own issues, but it gave me the room to do the same. I would never, ever, ever want to go through that again (have I said “never” and “ever” enough?) however, the new relationship that was built on what remained, that foundation, that look, is everything I ever wanted and more.