The Reporter
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
October 18, 1888
ADVICE FOR WIVES
- Be gentile and firm with children.
- Beware of the first disagreement.
- Beware of meddlers and tale bearers.
- Learn to deny yourself and prefer others.
- Avoid moods and fits of sulkiness.
- Never charge a bad motive, if a good one is conceivable.
- Learn to govern yourselves and to be gentle and patient.
- Learn to say kind and pleasant things whenever an opportunity offers.
- Never speak or act in anger until you have prayed over your words or act.
- Remember that, valuable as is the gift of speech, silence is often more valuable.
- Never retort a sharp or angry word. It is the second word that makes the quarrel.
- Study the characters of each and sympathize with all their troubles, however small.
- Remember that you are married to a man, not to a god; be prepared for imperfections.
- Do not neglect little things, if they can affect the comfort of others in the smallest degree.
- Don’t be always teasing him for money, and keep the household expenses well within your allowance.
- Once in a while let your husband have the last word; it will gratify him and no particular loss to you.
- Do not expect too much from others, but forbear and forgive, as you would desire forbearance and forgiveness yourself.
- Read something in the papers besides fashion notes and society columns; have some knowledge of what is going on in the foreign countries.
- Even if your husband should have no heart, he is sure to have a stomach, so be careful to inbricate the marriage yoke with well cooked dinners.
- Guard your tempers, especially in seasons of ill health, irritation and trouble, and soften them by prayers and a sense of your own shortcomings and errors.
- And first be as kind and courteous to your husband as you were when hew as your lover. Then you used to look up to him; do not now look down upon him.
