The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-07-01
Somebody's Husband.

Very many of the magazines and
newspapers nowadays are so clogged
up with "advice to women that eX-
pert readers learn to skip all such para
graphs with the same agility developed
in skipping the advertisements of pat
ent medicines. In taking note of the
needs of humanity, however, | have
discovered one little plot of ground
hitherto uncultivated by the moral adj
wiser. We hear enough about the
training that ought to be given our
girls, so that they may be prepared for
wifehood and motherhood. / would
like to suggest to those having charge
of children that they train up the boys
for husbandhOod and fatherhood.
| have heard parents without num-
Der talk over the future of their boys
as doctors, lawyers, and merchants;
but | have heard very few devote
much time or thought to the question
of what kind of husband or father
their boy would be likely to make. 1t
is certainly strange that there are so
many bad husbands when the mother
is supposed to have the training of the
children, at least during the early and
most impressive years. 1t is strange
that women, who know often by sad
experience just how many and great
trials come to every home circle, and
know also how the patient forbearance
and gentle, loving sympathy of the
head of the household would tide over
the difficulty, should not teach their
sons, as very first lesson, the princi-
pals of good husbandship. Some peo-
pie seem to think that good husbands,
like blackberries down South, grow
wild and "'thout any raisin';" but |
tell you it takes good deal of
" raisin'" to bring up a husband in
the way he should go, and too often the
bloom and sweetness of married life is
lost in the process. Some people,
again, consider that all that is neces-
sary to the making of good husband
is that he shall be sober and industri-
Gus. But there are a good many little
things besides which 90 to the making
of a good husband, and the woman
covers this fact. The greater part of
domestic unhappiness hinges on the
small things of life. This is not a new
thought by any means, but it is more
common to suppose that these little
luluSS are lut small omissions ana
commissions of the wife. Women
are advised not to scold, not to fret
not to sulk, not to forget to put on a
clean collar in the morning, not to for.
get to bang their hair, not to forget the
buttons, and to be sure that the coffee
is not muddy; but how about the dos
and don'ts on the other side? Wouldn't
it be just as we'll to say to the husband
Don't go home with your brow al
twisted in a Gordian knot and your
voice like a rasping saw; don't forget
that a woman, even though she be your
wife, does not want an unkempt slower
hanging around the house at odd hours
don't forget that woman, even though
she be wife, does not like to have hel
ears polluted by language which the
dictates of polite society forbid a mar
to use in public; don't forget that {
woman, even though she be wife
does not admire stinginess, gluttony, o.
vulgarity in the man whom she hal
promised to honor and obey"
Too often men forget that the mere
assumption of wifely duties does no
destroy single womanly trait. Wife
hood and motherhood develop all tina
is sweet and womanly; they destroy