The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-10-25
ON sUBJUGATING A HUSBAND.

how she may do everything possible
to avoid it. If she is already ap-
preaching the age of 40 it may be
impossible to avoid it. The harm
may have been done already, but by
starting in time and taking the neces-
sary precautions it can either be
avoided altogether or its worst conse-
quences can be made as tolerable as
possible.
There isa general impression among
nearly all members of my own sex
with whom I am acquainted that it is
a misfortune for woman to have an
active intellect. I am defining and
not indorsing this opinion. My own
soqinion is that though an active in
telsct may be and often does become
graf misfortune to its possessor or
subject, it is greater misfortune not
to have it. Nothing human, as the
poet has said, is on all parts happy.
1t is easy to be very miserable with
a very active intellect, but it is i'm
possibleto avoid being very miserable
with an intellect which will not ope-
rate at al.
The ve.y general impression with
the male lex, especially with its mar
riageable members who have not yet
reached tie age of 80 years, is that
an active intellect in marriageable
young woman ought to disqualify her
from matrinony. 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, it does have
that effect is intensified according to
the degree of the intensity of his sat-
isfaction with his own intellect.
This intensity of self-satisfaction,
though distressing in its effect, is
seemingly 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 un-
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
satisfaction should be replaced by
wisdom. But this intention may ca
silly 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 rAr
cent..-~--14 &C., t1-e 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 i'm
pact against exterior circumstances
will be feeble. The use to which
nature intends to put the head of the
family in this very use as a battering
ram to force an opening in the outer
world for the family. If he is high
ly satisfied with himself at the Begin
ming if at ~, when he marries, his
confidence in his own intellect is over
powering, and if this confidence is
iudiciously sustained and increased
by his wife's admiration, his capaci-
ty as battering ram may become
phenomenal. He will not only butt,
but 60 on butting up against things,
no matter how greatly his head may
suffer from the absolutely unavoid-
able reactions. Thus, by the time his
satisfaction disappears unnatural re-
actions 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 take possession of him
he has solved a natural problem in
the natural way.
It is not only desirable, therefore,
but necessary, that every woman who
feels that her intellect is superior in
its activities to that of the husband
she has married already or expects
to marry should conceal her opinion
from him with the utmost pains. II
she does not, and if she is right in
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 II
which she can possibly avoid it is BY
admiring him more than she doe:
herself. This may be very difficult
or even impossible, but it ought to bt
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 devol
oped out of even the faintest hope
Even when man feels himself almos
completely subjugated by the superio
intellectual energies of his wife; evei
when the hard-headedness with which
nature supplied him to fit him TO
standing the repeated impact of hi
skull against opposing circumstanc
has been almost wholly lost, he ma,
be so surprised at finding his wifi
admiring him for something he ha
done that for an indefinite time there
after he will be encouraged to but
up against everything in the way Q
the necessary opening for the family
Where the time for this has passed
where the husband is once complete
ly and hopelessly subjugated, the onl