The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-09-16
"Advice to Young Wives.''

Tract Society whose business it is to
disseminate sound doctrine on the
sphere of woman, and especially on her
duties as a wife. These monitions
sometimes appear clothed in muslin,
and with a publishers Endorsement
upon their instructive backs. But more
often they enjoin waiting world in
the columns of society journals, or the
fiy-sheets of the Sunday papers, culled
from unnamed and mysterious sources.
The harmony of these gospels, how
ever, is remarkable. Marriage, they
declare, is the duty, the privilege and
the destiny of every woman. Yet mar
rage is too often a disappointment.
And this is because the wife refuses to
infuse its gray bleakness with that
celestial warmth which is her chiefest
function. If the husband is Indifferent,
silent, fault-fnding, bored, addicted to
his club, it is almost certainly because
the house is unattractive, the dinners
uninviting, or the mistress dull. Nor
is that delinquent left more in doubt as
to the way of repentance than as to the
certainty of sin.
She is directed to make her rooms
hospitable with innumerable pretty and
graceful embellishments, such as warm
draperies, water-colors, photographs,
bits of cheerful china, bronzes, fans and
a constant succession of flowers. She
IS never to be seen by her husband in
careless or unbecoming array. She is
to make study of variety in ribbons
and ornaments, that her disconnected
lord may soothe his perturbed spirit
with the inspection of these absorbing
surprises.
Her table must be garnished with
those tempting and perfectly cooked
yet simple dishes which are among the
attractions of the club dining room.
And she should be as ready to invite her
husbands friends to these Apician ban
quets as to see that they are prepared.
Last OF all, the young wife must be
more interesting, various and well-com-
bined than her drawing-room, her rib
bons, or her dinners. She must search
the daily papers, to the end that she
may exchange views with her husband
on politics, finance, the condition of
Europe, the chances of war in the East,
Or the relative merits of Presidential
candidates. She is to study the re-
views and magazines, intelligently fol-
lowing the great tides of modern
thought, and ready to supplement a
possible want of knowledge thereof in
the masculine mind, attributable only
to lack of time. She is "never to
permit a leaden silence to settle upon
the table, nor upon the domestic even
ing about the hearth-stone." On the
contrary. she is gracefully to make
the conversation futter from point to
point, alighting on hundred promon-
tories OF thought, but nowhere folding
its wings to rest"
If the representative and disappoint-
ed young wife will but follow these SIM
pie hints, she will recover and retain
the lover who has been too long lost in
the husband.
:. '''Tis apt, and of great credit" Yet,
like other great schemes of reform, it
may come to grief because the human
nature these pretty oracles centem-
plate is a very different compound
from the human nature that exists.
The means OF grace contained in the
artistic parlor and dining-room for ex-
ample, are apt to be hindered, not to
say denied, by the fact that the purse
strings are usually held by the young
husband, who is both insensible of his
need and skeptical of the fructifying
influence of plaques and embroidered
screens. Even the innocent phrase,
"a constant succession of fiowers,'
signifies an outgo which, being limited
at, would be vigorously condemned in
nine cases out of ten.
New views as to dinners would doubt
less be gratifying to many households.
But there are vastly more wives who
deserve praise for getting comfortable
results from limited incomes and inca
pable servants than. of those who are
indifferent to the legitimate claims of
The palate and digestive system. And
here, again, better wages to a better
cook, or the purchase of more delicate
and expensive materials, would be reck-
oned by the master of the house a need |
less expenditure.
Nor, we should say, would the Grant
and ennuied husband of real life be tied |
20 the domestic altar by knots of rib |
bon, however cunningly looped or in
definitely varied. Ii the lover cared |
or his mistress girdle, it was because
t was hers, not because it was blue.
md though the persevering wife run
he whole gamut Of color, with prettily-
accented lingerings on pink, crimson or
avender, it is to be feared that too Of
en her iege will not know one from
he other, unless he inwardly remark
hat " that trying shade makes Helena
ook dreadfully faded.''
And if a jaded man sits down to
Inner to have leading articles mixed
With his TODD and drink, or settles into
lis easy-chair of an evening to be in
reduced to Mathew Arnold, or Thorold
rogers, or DR.. Noah Porter, he is quite
IS likely, we opine. to turn FESTIVE and
uiky as to be charmed with his wife's
The simple truth is that most men
lelther expect, nor desire, nor intend.
o be agreeable after marriage in the
anne way which commended them to
acceptance during courtship.
They have taken the coniugal vows
,pon them, they would explain it if
hey could condescend to explanation.
That should be enough To oss,,ro a.