The Marriage Book (36 page)

IN-LAWS

PLUTARCH

ADVICE TO THE BRIDE AND GROOM
, 1ST CENTURY

Best known for his
Parallel Lives
, the Greek historian Plutarch (circa 46–120) also wrote what has become known as the
Moralia
, a collection of essays and dialogues on ethical, literary, and political matters. His
Advice to the Bride and Groom
contained both prescriptions (see
Oneness
) and, as in the case below, descriptions.

In the African city of Leptis, the custom is for the bride, the day after her marriage, to send a message to her husband’s mother, asking for a pot. The mother-in-law refuses, and says she does not have one. This is to ensure that the bride knows from the start the stepmotherliness of a mother-in-law, and so is not angry or upset if something worse follows later. Recognizing this, the wife must seek to palliate the cause. This is a mother’s jealous rivalry for her son’s love. The only way to cure this is to secure the husband’s love privately, but not attempt to loosen or weaken his love for his mother.

JUVENAL

“THE WAYS OF WOMEN,” 2ND CENTURY

Little is known about the life of Decimus Junius Juvenalis (circa 55–circa 127), but his writings, particularly his sixteen satires, were extremely influential. They took on subjects as varied as daily life in Rome, homosexuality, health, money, power, and, in the case of his sixth and longest satire, the general corruption of Roman women.

All chance of domestic harmony is lost while your wife’s mother is living. She gets her to rejoice in despoiling her husband, stripping him naked. She gets her to write back politely and with sophistication when her seducer sends letters. She tricks your spies or bribes them. Then when your daughter is feeling perfectly well she calls in the doctor Archigenes and says that the blankets are too heavy. Meanwhile, her lover, in hiding shut off from her, impatient at the delay, waits in silence and stretches his foreskin. Maybe you think that her mother will teach her virtuous ways—ones different from her own? It’s much more productive for a dirty old lady to bring up a dirty little girl.

COTESWORTH PINCKNEY

THE WEDDING GIFT, TO ALL WHO ARE ENTERING THE MARRIAGE STATE
, 1848

Scion of a prominent South Carolina family of planters and politicians, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1812–1898) chose instead the life of an Episcopal priest. In this marriage manual (see also
Secrets
), he offered wide-ranging advice to newlyweds.

The solemnization of matrimony and the union of two hearts, as man and wife, does not of necessity constitute the union of the families of each party. This fact is deserving of deep consideration, inasmuch as it is not a rare occurrence that conjugal happiness, if not entirely broken up, is deranged to a degree almost tantamount, by the jealousies of the two families.

The delegating to you of the authority which a mother exercises over a son till his marriage—an indefinable authority, which every good mother exercises over a good son—has probably never once flashed across the mind of your mother-in-law. She will consider him to the latest moment as her peculiar property, granted to her by the laws of nature; a being whom she has reared and nourished, and trained up to her own mind, and whose daily progress she has watched with the most zealous affection. She will, therefore, regard with instinctive jealousy every estrangement of that affection which has existed from the birth of her offspring.

Now there are two points of view in which you must contemplate those feelings of affection, each of which will present to you a favorable view. First, you must bear in mind the affections of a mother for her offspring. If she were a worthless woman, and not fit to be entrusted with the care and training of a child, she would not possess these jealous feelings of attachment. Secondly, you may rest assured that if a strong attachment exists between a mother and her son,
it prognosticates favorably for your future happiness; for an affectionate son rarely, if ever, makes a bad husband. It may be said, then, that if you wish to obtain a partner in every way desirable as the companion of your future life, you must expect a jealousy on the part of his mother on your taking him from the home of his first and best friend.

Seeing that such feelings are to be expected, you must exercise your utmost circumspection, as happiness is the prize. We have before observed that a good mother must merit your esteem; endeavor, therefore, to engage her affections as the mother of your husband, and engage her affections also as a senior whose experience is worth having. As a chief means of obtaining this end, form a resolution in your own mind to be pleased with her, and you will find that in this almost wholly consists the art of making yourself acceptable.

A&P TRADE CARD, 1885

The A&P food stores popularized the “trade card” in the nineteenth century—usually adorned with romantic or sentimental images, but occasionally with something a little more biting.

EDWARD HARDY

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED: BEING A HANDBOOK TO MARRIAGE BY A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY
, 1885

For more Hardy, see
Honeymoon
. Here he is quoting an unnamed clergyman.

Neither member of a conjugal partnership should listen to a single word of criticism of the other member from any relative whatever, even should the words of wisdom drop from the lips of father, mother, brother, or sister. The rules of the new society need not extend beyond these two, for there would be nothing in the conduct of members in good standing to require other special attention.

“ADVICE TO YOUNG WIVES”

CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE
, 1895

Some excellent advice to a young wife consists of an earnest exhortation to preserve discreet silence with respect to family members.

Always remember that what you learn about your husband’s family is to be kept to yourself; that when you married him and took his name you became one of the family, and the little trouble, the little skeleton, is not to be discussed with the members of the family in which you were born. To your sister it may mean nothing that some trouble has come to your husband’s brother. You may tell it to her in secrecy, and it may seem of so little importance that she will repeat it to her sister-in-law, and gradually what was meant to be kept quiet is told all round the neighborhood. The art of keeping to yourself what you hear on each side of the house is one that you must cultivate, for it means the keeping of peace. Surely, you would not wish to hurt your husband, yet you will do it if you cannot keep quiet. When you enter his mother’s house, anything that is told to you in confidence must be forgotten when you leave it, unless, indeed, it is discussed with your husband, and the same rule will apply to your own family. Don’t imagine that every little frown, every little disagreeable word is meant for you, and do not retail in your husband anything unpleasant that may have happened when you were visiting at his mother’s house. Think that she is your mother, too, and give her the privilege of speaking to you as your mother does. I know it isn’t always easy to have fault found with one when one is trying to do one’s best, but think over what is said, if there is anything helpful in it.

“ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE MOTHERS-IN-LAW”

THE BALTIMORE SUN
, 1908

Remember, first of all, mesdames, that a son-in-law, however silly he may look in his wedding gauds, with his hair clipped short and his cheeks depilitated to the verge of mayhem, is nevertheless a human being, with rights specifically guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. . . . He may resemble, in complexion and mentality, a lobster, and you may have to support him, but he is still a man, and as such he is legally and biologically superior to all other domestic animals. To kill him is murder, to scorn him is sinful, and to rile him is unwise.

Strange as it may seem, it is not your duty to regulate his conduct. If he is of a boisterous nature and occasionally laughs too loud, you are not to blame. If he smokes cigarettes and acquires an orange-peel tint, you are not held responsible. If he belongs to the Elks and comes home from a Lodge of Sorrow with vine-leaves in his hair, you will be served with no subpoenas. If he sneaks off every Saturday night to go to a burlesque show, the sin is upon his own head. . . .

Your son-in-law is willing to submit to a good deal of bossing from your daughter, for he knows that she loves him, and every man regards the acts of any woman who loves him with toleration, because he has great respect for her taste and good sense. But in your own case there is no such palliative. He is well aware that you look upon him, not with affection, but with suspicion: that his sudden arrest on any charge, from selling liquor without a license to bigamy, would not surprise you in the least. Therefore, he is restless and ill at ease beneath your gaze. When you enter the room he starts. When you fix a fishy eye upon him and frown, a lump arises in his throat and he is flabbergasted.

You should treat him in a far more humane and diplomatic manner. Give him a free rein. Keep away from him as much as possible, and when you meet him by accident greet him with a smile. Do not assume an air of familiarity in your relations with him, for no man with proper self-respect likes his mother-in-law to address him by his first name.

BRITISH PROVERB

There is but one good mother-in-law, and she is dead.

HOW TO BE A GOOD HUSBAND
, 1936

See
Grievances
, for more advice from this anonymously written British handbook.

When your mother-in-law departs, and your wife gives a sigh of relief, don’t duplicate the expression of relief. Be absolutely passive for, while your wife may cast stones at her own people, she will thoroughly resent it if you take a hand at the game, also. It is a privilege of hers, not yours.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

THIS IS MY STORY
, 1937

Seen by many historians as the ultimate meddling mother-in-law, Sara Roosevelt had persuaded her son, Franklin, to wait a year before announcing his engagement to Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), his fifth cousin once removed. Then, in a master stroke of passive-aggression, Sara made their wedding gift the design and construction of a double town house in Manhattan—where she would live alongside the couple. Though there were separate entrances, a number of the rooms on several floors could be joined by pocket doors. “You were never quite sure when she would appear, day or night,” Eleanor wrote in a magazine years later, and in her autobiography, she recalled her feelings about her new home.

The night before the wedding, Sara wrote in her journal about her twenty-three-year-old son, the future president: “This is Franklin’s last night at home as a boy.”

I did not know quite what was the matter with me, but I remember that a few weeks after we moved into the new house in East 65th Street I sat in front of my dressing table and wept, and when my bewildered young husband asked me what on earth was the matter with me, I said I did not like to live in a house which was not in any way mine, one that I had done nothing about and which did not represent the way I wanted to live. Being an eminently reasonable person, he thought I was quite mad and told me so gently, and said I would feel different in a little while and left me alone until I should become calmer.

I pulled myself together and realized that I was acting like a little fool, but there was a good deal of truth in what I said.

G.I. ROUNDTABLE SERIES

CAN WAR MARRIAGES BE MADE TO WORK?
, 1944

Between 1943 and 1945, the Division of Information and Education of the U.S. Army collaborated with the American Historical Association to produce a series of pamphlets called “Constructing a Postwar World.” The subjects varied from the international (
What Is the Future of Italy?
,
How Shall Lend-Lease Accounts Be Settled?
) to the very domestic, including advice for the everyman protagonist, “Private Puzzled.”

The authoritative voice of the pamphlets was due in part to the fact that none of them was signed by an individual. Nonetheless, records show that at least the first draft of
War Marriages
was written by University of Minnesota sociology professor Clifford Kirkpatrick, and that the series’ advisory board featured professors from top-ranking universities, including Arthur M. Schlesinger at Harvard.