Excerpts from Don’ts for Wives, by Blanche Ebbutt (Copyright A & C Black Ltd, London)
- Don’t brood: that way madness lies. If you catch yourself brooding, take a day off. Go out to a concert or cinema. Cut brooding before it gets too strong a hold of you.
- Don’t say bitter things when you are angry. They sting, and are remembered long after.
- Don’t check high spirits. Let people sing in the bathroom, whistle on the stairs. Be thankful for a cheerful person about the house.
- Don’t spend the best years of your life pinching and saving unnecessarily, until you are too old to get pleasure out of your money.
- Don’t omit the kiss of greeting. It cheers a man when his wife is glad to see him. And don’t greet him with a catalogue of every petty annoyance and pin prick you have suffered during the day.
- Don’t be careless about the way meals are served when you and your husband are alone. Attractive surroundings make eating an agreeable process.
- Don’t dress badly, even if your allowance is small. Let your gowns be of good material, dainty, and well cut; there is nothing gained by being dowdy.
- Don’t allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is “only” your husband to see you. Depend on it, he has no use for faded gowns and badly dressed hair.
- Don’t quarrel with your husband’s relatives. As a rule, a little tact and patience will carry you over the thin ice.
- Don’t be a household martyr. Some wives are never happy unless they are miserable. The woeful smile is most exasperating.