The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-12-13
ON sUBJUGATING A HUSBAND.

AlHlOSI duy WOmdu WHO mas an dC-
tive intellect at 20 can subjugate her
husband before she is 40, and the OBJ
ject of this discourse is to show her
how she may do everything possible
to avoid it. If she is already ap-
preaching the age of 40 it may be i'm
possible to avoid it. The harm may
have been done already, but by start
ing in time taking the necessary pre-
cautions it can either be avoided alto
gether or its worst consequences can
be made as tolerable as possible.
There is a general impression
among nearly all members of my own
sex with whom am acquainted that
it is misfortune for woman to have
an active intellect. I am defining
and not indorsing this opinion. My
own opinion is that though an active
intellect may be and often does be-
come great misfortune to its posses
sor or subject, it is a greater misfor-
tune not to have it. Nothing human,
as the poet has said, is on all parts
happy. It is easy to be very misera-
BILE with very active intellect, but it
is impossible to avoid being very mis-
erable with an intellect which will not
operate at all.
The very general impression with
the male sex, especially with its mar
riageble members who have not yet
reached the age Of 80 years, is that an
active intellect in a marriageable
young woman ought to disqualify her
from matrimony. In the simplicity
of her inexperience of the masculine
nature, she may not know that the
brilliancy with which she seeks to at
tract is really repellant. But wheth-
er she knows it or not, 1t does have
that effect and is intensified according
to the degree Of the intensity of his
satisfaction with his own intellect.
This intensity of self-satisfaction,
though distressing in its effect, is
seeming indispensable in the male
of the human family between the ages
of 20 and 40 years. The attempts to
write really serviceable natural his
tory of the human family are SO mr.
satisfactory that there is no literary,
scientific or even polite definition for
the controlling impulse of this period
of human life. The popular defni-
ton, however, is accurate and COM
prehensive, even though it may seem
to some crudely metaphorical. Thus
defined, it is the impulse to "butt up
against things" Developing its
greatest activities at about the age of
20, it continues to be an operative
factor of efficiency as long as self-sat-
isfaction should be replaced by wis
dom. But this intention may easily
be defeated and it is probably true
that wisdom is responsible for not
more than 10 per cent. of the things
which are actually accomplished in
the world. The remaining 90 per
cent. result from the impact of the
innumerable host of people who are
continually butting up against things
with view of forcing the opening for
themselves they did not find ready
made.
The objection to subjugating hus-
band after marriage, or to selecting
one who is already permanently sub
jugated before marriage, is that, if
he loses his own satisfaction with
himself in any way, even in what may
seem the most desirable way of entire
submission to his wife, his impact
against exterior circumstances will be
feeble. The use to which nature in
tends to put the head of the family
in this very use as battering ram to
force an opening in the outer world
for the family. If he is highly salts
fed with himself at the beginning ;
if at 22, when he marries, his conf
dence in his own intellect is over
powering, and if tEis confidence is
judiciously sustained and increased by
his wife's admiration, his capacity as
a battering ram may become phenom-
email. He will not only butt, but go
on butting up against things, no mat
ter how greatly his head may suffer
from the absolutely unavoidable reac-
tions. Thus, by the time his satisfac-
ton disappears unnatural reactions
and attritions, he will usually have
made the necessary opening in the
world for the family of which he is
the head, and by the time wisdom
and caution takes possession of him
he has solved a natural problem II
the natural way.
1t is not only desirable, therefore
but necessary, that every woman who
feels that her intellect is superior il
its activities to that of the husband
she has married already or expects tC
marry should conceal her opinion
from him with the utmost pains. i
she does not, and if she is right il
her opinion, she will inevitably sub
iugate him. This is one Of the great
est misfortunes which can happen tc
her or to him, and the only way il
which she can possibly avoid 1t if b!
admiring him more than she does her
self. This may be very difficult O.
even impossible, but it ought to b.
attempted at any rate, and the at
tempt ought never to be given up a!
long as there is the faintest hope o
success. And success may be devel
oped out of even faintest hope. Evei
when man feels himself almost com
pletely subjugated by the superior in
tellectual energies of his wife; evel
when the hard-headedness with whicl
nature supplied him to fit him TO
standing the repeated impact of hi
skull against opposing circumstanc
has been almost wholly lost, he may
be so surprised at finding his wife ad
miring him for something he ha
done that for an indefinite time there
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