The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1901-08-07

and requested his advice as to the
way to manage wife. "You manage
horse, sir, but you DC not manage a
wife, replied the good Doctor indig-
nantly; but being a man of considcra-
BILE humor he probably mentally added:
''Vhey generally manage US" We arc
ne. Informed that tic inuuisitive
youth slunk away abashcd by the
preacher 8 rcproof, or remained to put
his query in some less offensive form.
In either case we may be sure that he
found later on that he might have
spared himself the trouble Of seeking
information on such subject; but if
he pursued the latter course we regret
that history does not relate what ad-
vice Dr.. Deems gave him, since his
advice on almost any subject was al
ways worth hearing. Interest in the
matter is not, hU1ever, confined to
those who arc about to enter the holy
estate of matrimony, nor to those who
have just done so, for we have known
men who had celebrated their silver
wedding day without ever discovering
the important secret, and who we're
still seeking information on that point.
From time immemorial the problem of
how to manage wife has been mat
ter of anxious thought with husbands
OF every land and age; and We have
yet to hear Of one who made COM
plete success of it, though almost
every man has pet theory of his own
as to the best way in which it can be
done. Bluebeard-who has long stood
as q type Of those who fancy they can
do 80 by ferocity and sternness Sim
agined he had discovered the way
when he cut of his disobedient wives
heads and hung them up in the closet.
But in Fatima, his tenth or twelfth
bride, he found more than his match,
and discovered that feminine weakness
with cleverness may outwit brute
force. Mythology assures us that
even the gods themselves, with all
their supposed wisdom, 1ere quite as
powerless as morta!a when it came to
this matter. Despite Jove's porten-
tous frowns and headshakings, and
his ready thunderbolts, he made but
poor hand at managing Juno; and
whenever he was particularly anxious
to gain some point he had to resort to
crafty means Of deceiving OF coerc-
ing her. Where the Thunderer failed,
it would have been presumption on
the part OF Homer to make any Of his
. heroes succeed; and 30 every one OF
the brave Greeks and Trojans were
domestic towards and we're forced 70
allow their wives to follow their OWN
sweet will; which they did persistent
ly and thereby kept the men perpetu.
ally in hot water.
If we turn from fiction to reality,
We are forced to think that romancers
were drawing upon their own expe-
rience whos they depicted the ;mpos-
sibility Of managing wife The ina
bility to do SO has been inherited by
man through hundreds of generations.
The FIRST man made miserable failure
in his attempt to govern Eve, and
ended, as do most of his unhappy de-
scendants, by allowing Madame Eve
to twist him around her little finger,
with disastrous consequences to them
both and to US all. Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob were all notably unable to
govern their households, and if their
kinsman, Lot, succeeded rather better
it was not until his wife had been
changed into an inanimate pillar of
salt. Had he managed her better she
would never have looked back to So
dom and suffered the penalty of DISC
bedienoe. But what is the use of
enumerating single instances of this
kind? Solomon, so renowned for wis
dom in everything else, never discov.
cred the secret Of how to manage hif
multitudinous wives, but allowed them
to lead him into all manner Of heresy
and schism. AS it was in the days OF
Solomon, so it has been ever since,
and so it will be to the end of time,
unless one wiser than he arises. Men
have come now to know that it is use.
less to pretend to manage their house.
holds, and so they acknowledge their
weakness and speak restfully Of their
wife as s'my better half" an expires.
sion that has more truth than poetry
init. The fact, Too, Of this subjec
tion has been embodied in many {
homely proverb, like that of 9TH,
grey mare being the better horse"