How To Win Friends And Influence People

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This man who had once confessed that in his youth he had

committed every sin imaginable—even murder—tried to follow

literally the teachings of Jesus. He gave all his lands away and lived a

life of poverty. He worked in the fields, chopping wood and pitching

hay. He made his own shoes, swept his own room, ate out of a

wooden bowl, and tried to love his enemies.

Leo Tolstoi's life was a tragedy, and the cause of his tragedy was his

marriage. His wife loved luxury, but he despised it. She craved fame

and the plaudits of society, but these frivolous things meant nothing

whatever to him. She longed for money and riches, but he believed

that wealth and private property were a sin. For years, she nagged

and scolded and screamed because he insisted on giving away the

right to publish his books freely without paying him any royalties

whatever. She wanted the money those books would produce. When

he opposed her, she threw herself into fits of hysteria, rolling on the

floor with a bottle of opium at her lips, swearing that she was going

to kill herself and threatening to jump down the well.

There is one event in their lives that to me is one of the most

pathetic scenes in history. As I have already, said, they were

gloriously happy when they were first married; but now, forty-eight

years later, he could hardly bear the sight of her. Sometimes of an

evening, this old and heartbroken wife, starving for affection, came

and knelt at his knees and begged him to read aloud to her the

exquisite love passages that he had written about her in his diary

fifty years previously. And as he read of those beautiful, happy days

that were now gone forever, both of them wept. How different, how

sharply different, the realities of life were from the romantic dreams

they had once dreamed in the long ago.

Finally, when he was eighty-two years old, Tolstoi was unable to

endure the tragic unhappiness of his home any longer so he fled

from his wife on a snowy October night in 1910—fled into the cold

and darkness, not knowing where he was going.

Eleven days later, he died of pneumonia in a railway station. And his

dying request was that she should not be permitted to come into his

presence. Such was the price Countess Tolstoi paid for her nagging

and complaining and hysteria.

The reader may feel that she had much to nag about. Granted. But

that is beside the point. The question is: did nagging help her, or did

it make a bad matter infinitely worse? "I really think I was insane."

That is what Countess Tolstoi herself thought about it—after it was

too late.

The great tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's life also was his marriage.

Not his assassination, mind you, but his marriage. When Booth fired,

Lincoln never realized he had been shot; but he reaped almost daily,

for twenty-three years, what Herndon, his law partner, described as

"the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity." "Conjugal infelicity?" That is

putting it mildly. For almost a quarter of a century, Mrs Lincoln

nagged and harassed the life out of him.

She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband; nothing

about him was ever right. He was stoop-shouldered, he walked

awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down like an Indian.

She complained that there was no spring in his step, no grace to his

movement; and she mimicked his gait and nagged at him to walk

with his toes pointed down, as she had been taught at Madame

Mentelle's boarding school in Lexington.

She didn't like the way his huge ears stood out at right angles from

his head. She even told him that his nose wasn't straight, that his

lower lip stuck out, and he looked consumptive, that his feet and

hands were too large, his head too small.

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Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were opposites in every

way: in training, in background, in temperament, in tastes, in mental

outlook. They irritated each other constantly.

"Mrs Lincoln's loud, shrill voice," wrote the late Senator Albert J.

Beveridge, the most distinguished Lincoln authority of this

generation—"Mrs Lincoln's loud shrill voice could be heard across the

street, and her incessant outbursts of wrath were audible to all who

lived near the house. Frequently her anger was displayed by other

means than words, and accounts of her violence are numerous and

unimpeachable."

To illustrate: Mr and Mrs Lincoln, shortly after their marriage, lived

with Mrs Jacob Early—a doctor's widow in Springfield who was forced

to take in boarders.

One morning Mr and Mrs Lincoln were having breakfast when Lincoln

did something that aroused the fiery temper of his wife. What, no

one remembers now. But Mrs Lincoln, in a rage, dashed a cup of hot

coffee into her husband's face. And she did it in front of the other

boarders. Saying nothing, Lincoln sat there in humiliation and silence

while Mrs Early came with a wet towel and wiped off his face and

clothes.

Mrs Lincoln's jealousy was so foolish, so fierce, so incredible, that

merely to read about some of the pathetic and disgraceful scenes

she created in public—merely reading about them seventy-five years

later makes one gasp with astonishment. She finally went insane;

and perhaps the most charitable thing one can say about her is that

her disposition was probably always affected by incipient insanity.

Did all this nagging and scolding and raging change Lincoln? In one

way, yes. It certainly changed his attitude toward her. It made him

regret his unfortunate marriage, and it made him avoid her presence

as much as possible.

Springfield had eleven attorneys, and they couldn't all make a living

there; so they used to ride horseback from one county seat to

another, following Judge David Davis while he was holding court in

various places. In that way, they managed to pick up business from

all the county seat towns throughout the Eighth Judicial District.

The other attorneys always managed to get back to Springfield each

Saturday and spend the week-end with their families. But Lincoln

didn't. He dreaded to go home: and for three months in the spring,

and again for three months in the autumn, he remained out on the

circuit and never went near Springfield. He kept this up year after

year. Living conditions in the country hotels were often wretched;

but, wretched as they were, he preferred them to his own home and

Mrs Lincoln's constant nagging and wild outbursts of temper.

Such are the results that Mrs Lincoln, the Empress Eugenic, and

Countess Tolstoi obtained by their nagging. They brought nothing

but tragedy into their lives. They destroyed all that they cherished

most.

Bessie Hamburger, who has spent eleven years in the Domestic

Relations Court in New York City, and has reviewed thousands of

cases of desertion, says that one of the chief reasons men leave

home is because their wives nag. Or, as the Boston Post puts it:

"Many a wife has made her own marital grave with a series of little

digs."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy,

• Rule 1 is: Don't, don't nag!!!

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2 - Love And Let Live

"I May Commit many follies in life," Disraeli said, "but I never intend

to marry for love." And he didn't. He stayed single until he was

thirty-five, and then he proposed to a rich widow, a widow fifteen

years his senior; a widow whose hair was white with the passing of

fifty winters. Love? Oh, no. She knew he didn't love her. She knew

he was marrying her for her money! So she made just one request:

she asked him to wait a year to give her the opportunity to study his

character. And at the end of that time, she married him.

Sounds pretty prosaic, pretty commercial, doesn't it? Yet

paradoxically enough, Disraeli's marriage was one of the most

glowing successes in all the battered and bespattered annals of

matrimony.

The rich widow that Disraeli chose was neither young, nor beautiful,

nor brilliant. Far from it. Her conversation bubbled with a laughprovoking display of literary and historical blunders. For example, she

"never knew which came first, the Greeks or the Romans." Her taste

in clothes was bizarre; and her taste in house furnishings was

fantastic. But she was a genius, a positive genius at the most

important thing in marriage: the art of handling men.

She didn't attempt to set up her intellect against Disraeli's. When he

came home bored and exhausted after an afternoon of matching

repartee with witty duchesses, Mary Anne's frivolous patter permitted

him to relax. Home, to his increasing delight, was a place where he

could ease into his mental slippers and bask in the warmth of Mary

Anne's adoration. These hours he spent at home with his ageing wife

were the happiest of his life. She was his helpmate, his confidante,

his advisor. Every night he hurried home from the House of

Commons to tell her the day's news. And—this is important—

whatever he undertook, Mary Anne simply did not believe he could

fail.

For thirty years, Mary Anne lived for Disraeli, and for him alone. Even

her wealth she valued only because it made his life easier. In return,

she was his heroine. He became an Earl after she died; but, even

while he was still a commoner, he persuaded Queen Victoria to

elevate Mary Anne to the peerage. And so, in 1868, she was made

Viscountess Beaconsfield.

No matter how silly or scatterbrained she might appear in public, he

never criticized her; he never uttered a word of reproach; and if

anyone dared to ridicule her, he sprang to her defence with ferocious

loyalty. Mary Anne wasn't perfect, yet for three decades she never

tired of talking" about her husband, praising him, admiring him.

Result? "We have been married thirty years," Disraeli said, "and I

have never been bored by her." (Yet some people thought because

Mary Anne didn't know history, she must be stupid!)

For his part, Disraeli never made it any secret that Mary Anne was

the most important thing in his life. Result? "Thanks to his kindness,"

Mary Anne used to tell their friends, "my life has been simply one

long scene of happiness." Between them, they had a little joke. "You

know," Disraeli would say, "I only married you for your money

anyhow." And Mary Anne, smiling, would reply, "Yes, but if you had

it to do over again, you'd marry me for love, wouldn't you?" And he

admitted it was true. No, Mary Anne wasn't perfect. But Disraeli was

wise enough to let her be herself.

As Henry James put it: "The first thing to learn in. intercourse with

others is noninterference with their own peculiar ways of being

happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence

with ours."

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That's important enough to repeat: "The first thing to learn in

intercourse with others is noninterference with their own peculiar

ways of being happy ..."

Or, as Leland Foster Wood in his book, Growing Together in the

Family, has observed: "Success in marriage is much more than a

matter of finding the right person; it is also a matter of being the

right person."

So, if you want your home life to be happy,

• Rule 2 is: Don't try to make your partner over.

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3 - Do This And You'll Be Looking Up The Time-Tables To Reno

Disraeli's bitterest rival in public life was the great Gladstone. These

two clashed on every debatable subject under the Empire, yet they

had one thing in common; the supreme happiness of their private

lives.

William and Catherine Gladstone lived together for fifty-nine years,

almost three score years glorified with an abiding devotion. I like to

think of Gladstone, the most dignified of England's prime ministers,

clasping his wife's hand and dancing around the hearthrug with her,

singing this song:

A ragamuffin husband and a rantipoling wife,

We'll fiddle it and scrape it

through the ups and downs

of life.

Gladstone, a formidable enemy in public, never criticized at home.

When he came down to breakfast in the morning, only to discover

that the rest of his family was still sleeping, he had a gentle way of

registering his reproach. He raised his voice and filled the house with

a mysterious chant that reminded the other members that England's

busiest man was waiting downstairs for his breakfast, all alone.

Diplomatic, considerate, he rigorously refrained from domestic

criticism.

And so, often, did Catherine the Great. Catherine ruled one of the

largest empires the world has ever known. Over millions of her

subjects she held the power of life and death. Politically, she was

often a cruel tyrant, waging useless wars and sentencing scores of

her enemies to be cut down by firing squads. Yet if the cook burned

the meat, she said nothing. She smiled and ate it with a tolerance

that the average American husband would do well to emulate.

Dorothy Dix, America's premier authority on the causes of marital

unhappiness, declares that more than fifty per cent of all marriages

are failures; and she knows that one of the reasons why so many

romantic dreams break up on the rocks of Reno is criticism—futile,

heartbreaking criticism.

So, if you want to keep your home life happy, remember Rule 3:

Don't criticize.

And if you are tempted to criticize the children . . . you imagine I am

going to say don't. But I am not. I am merely going to say, before

you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism,

"Father Forgets." It appeared originally as an editorial in the People's

Home Journal. We are reprinting it here with the author's

permission—reprinting it as it was condensed in the Reader's Digest:

"Father Forgets" is one of those little pieces which— dashed off in a

moment of sincere feeling—strikes an echoing chord in so many

readers as to become a perennial reprint favourite. Since its first

appearance, some fifteen years ago, "Father Forgets" has been

reproduced, writes the author, W. Livingston Larned, "in hundreds of

magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It

has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages.

I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it

from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been 'on the air'

on countless occasions and programmes. Oddly enough, college

periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a

little piece seems mysteriously to 'click.' This one certainly did."

Father Forgets

W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw

crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your

damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few

minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave

of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I

scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your

face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning

your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things

on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down

your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too

thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for

my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Good-bye,

Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your Shoulders

back!"

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Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the

road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were

holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boy friends by

marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were 數灥湳楶攠

and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine

that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you

came in, timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I

glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you

hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and

threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small

arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your

heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were

gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my

hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit

been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this

was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love

you; it was that I expected too much of youth. It was measuring you

by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your

character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over

the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush

in and kiss me goodnight. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have

come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there,

ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these

things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow

I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you

suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when

impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is

nothing but a boy—a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now,

son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.

Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her

shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

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4 - A Quick Way To Make Everybody Happy

"Most Men when seeking wives," says Paul Popenoe, Director of the

Institute of Family Relations in Los Angeles, "are not looking for

executives but for someone with allure and willingness to flatter their

vanity and make them feel superior. Hence the woman office

manager may be invited to luncheon, once. But she quite possibly

dishes out warmed-over remnants of her college courses on 'main

currents in contemporary philosophy,' and may even insist on paying

her own bill. Result: she thereafter lunches alone.

"In contrast, the noncollegiate typist, when invited to luncheon, fixes

an incandescent gaze on her escort and says yearningly, 'Now tell

me some more about yourself.' Result: he tells the other fellows that

'she's no raving beauty, but I have never met a better talker.'"

Men should express their appreciation of a woman's effort to look

well and dress becomingly. All men forget, if they have ever realized

it, how profoundly women are interested in clothes. For example, if a

man and woman meet another man and woman on the street, the

woman seldom looks at the other man; she usually looks to see how

well the other woman is dressed.

My grandmother died a few years ago at the age of ninety-eight.

Shortly before her death, we showed her a photograph of herself

that had been taken a third of a century earlier. Her failing eyes

couldn't see the picture very well, and the only question she asked

was: "What dress did I have on?" Think of it! An old woman in her

last December, bedridden, weary with age as she lay within the

shadow of the century mark, her memory fading so fast that she was

no longer able to recognize even her own daughters, still interested

in knowing what dress she had worn a third of a century before! I

was at her bedside when she asked that question. It left an

impression on me that will never fade.

The men who are reading these lines can't remember what suits or

shirts they wore five years ago, and they haven't the remotest desire

to remember them. But women—they are different, and we

American men ought to recognize it. French boys of the upper class

are trained to express their admiration of a woman's frock and

chapeau, not only once but many times during an evening. And fifty

million Frenchmen can't be wrong!

I have among my clippings a story that I know never happened, but

it illustrates a truth, so I'll repeat it:

According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end of a heavy

day's work, set before her men folks a heaping pile of hay. And when

they indignantly demanded whether she'd gone crazy, she replied:

"Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men

for the last twenty years, and in all that time I ain't heard no word to

let me know you wasn't just eating hay!"

The pampered aristocrats of Moscow and St Petersburg used to have

better manners; in the Russia of the Czars, it was the custom of the

upper classes, when they had enjoyed a fine dinner, to insist on

having the cook brought into the dining room to receive their

congratulations.

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Why not have as much consideration for your wife? The next time

the fried chicken is done to a tender turn, tell her so. Let her know

that you appreciate the fact that you're not just eating hay. Or, as

Texas Guinan used to say, "Give the little girl a great big hand."

And while you're about it, don't be afraid to let her know how

important she is to your happiness. Disraeli was as great a

statesman as England ever produced; yet, as we've seen, he wasn't

ashamed to let the world know how much he "owed to the little

woman."

Just the other day, while perusing a magazine, I came across this.

It's from an interview with Eddie Cantor.

"I owe more to my wife," says Eddie Cantor, "than to anyone else in

the world. She was my best pal as a boy; she helped me to go

straight. And after we married she saved every dollar, and invested

it, and reinvested it. She built up a fortune for me. We have five

lovely children. And she's made a wonderful home for me always. If

I've gotten anywhere, give her the credit."

Out in Hollywood, where marriage is a risk that even Lloyd's of

London wouldn't take a gamble on, one of the few outstandingly

happy marriages is that of the Warner Baxters. Mrs Baxter, the

former Winifred Bryson, gave up a brilliant stage career when she

married. Yet her sacrifice has never been permitted to mar their

happiness. "She missed the applause of stage success," Warner

Baxter says, "but I have tried to see that she is entirely aware of my

applause. If a woman is to find happiness at all in her husband, she

is to find it in his appreciation, and devotion. If that appreciation and

devotion is actual, there is the answer to his happiness also."

There you are. So, if you want to keep your home life happy, one of

the most important rules is

• Rule 4: Give honest appreciation.

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5 - They Mean So Much To A Woman

From Time immemorial, flowers have been considered the language

of love. They don't cost much, especially in season, and often they're

for sale on the street corners. Yet, considering the rarity with which

the average husband takes home a bunch of daffodils, you might

suppose them to be as expensive as orchids and as hard to come by

as the edelweiss which flowers on the cloud-swept cliffs of the Alps.

Why wait until your wife goes to the hospital to give her a few

flowers? Why not bring her a few roses tomorrow night? You like to

experiment. Try it. See what happens.

George M. Cohan, busy as he was on Broadway, used to telephone

his mother twice a day up to the time of her death. Do you suppose

he had startling news for her each time? No, the meaning of little

attentions is this: it shows the person you love that you are thinking

of her, that you want to please her, and that her happiness and

welfare are very dear, and very near, to your heart.

Women attach a lot of importance to birthdays and anniversaries—

just why, will forever remain one of those feminine mysteries. The

average man can blunder through life without memorizing many

dates, but there are a few which are indispensable: 1492, 1776, the

date of his wife's birthday, and the year and date of his own

marriage. If need be, he can even get along without the first two—

but not the last!

Judge Joseph Sabbath of Chicago, who has reviewed 40,000 marital

disputes and reconciled 2,000 couples, says: "Trivialities are at the

bottom of most marital unhappiness. Such a simple thing as a wife's

waving good-bye to her husband when he goes to work in the

morning would avert a good many divorces."

Robert Browning, whose life with Elizabeth Barrett Browning was

perhaps the most idyllic on record, was never too busy to keep love

alive with little, tributes and attentions. He treated his invalid wife

with such consideration that she once wrote to her sisters: "And now

I begin to wonder naturally whether I may not be some sort of real

angel after all."

Too many men underestimate the value of these small, everyday

attentions. As Gaynor Maddox said in an article in the Pictorial

Review: "The American home really needs a few new vices.

Breakfast in bed, for instance, is one of those amiable dissipations a

greater number of women should be indulged in. Breakfast in bed to

a woman does much the same thing as a private club for a man."

That's what marriage is in the long run—a series of trivial incidents.

And woe to the couple who overlook that fact. Edna St. Vincent

Millay summed it all up once in one of her concise little rhymes:

" 'Tis not love's going hurts my days, But that it went in little ways."

That's a good verse to memorize. Out in Reno, the courts grant

divorces six days a week, at the rate of one every ten marriages.

How many of these marriages do you suppose were wrecked upon

the reef of real tragedy? Mighty few, I'll warrant. If you could sit

there day in, day out, listening to the testimony of those unhappy

husbands and wives, you'd know love "went in little ways."

Take your pocket knife now and cut out this quotation. Paste it inside

your hat or paste it on the mirror, where you will see it every

morning when you shave:

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"I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or

any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.

Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy,

• Rule 5 is: Pay little attentions.

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6 - If You Want To Be Happy, Don't Neglect This One

Walter Damrosch married the daughter of James G. Blaine, one of

America's greatest orators and one-time candidate for President.

Ever since they met many years ago at Andrew Carnegie's home in

Scotland, the Damroschs have led a conspicuously happy life.

The secret?

"Next to care in choosing a partner,". says Mrs Damrosch, "I should

place courtesy after marriage. If young wives would only be as

courteous to their husbands as to strangers! Any man will run from a

shrewish tongue."

Rudeness is the cancer that devours love. Everyone knows this, yet

it's notorious that we are more polite to strangers than we are to our

own relatives. We wouldn't dream of interrupting strangers to say,

"Good heavens, are you going to tell that old story again!" We

wouldn't dream of opening our friends' mail without permission, or

prying into their personal secrets. And it's only the members of our

own family, those who are nearest and dearest to us, that we dare

insult for their trivial faults.

Again to quote Dorothy Dix: "It is an amazing but true thing that

practically the only people who ever say mean, insulting, wounding

things to us are those of our own households."

"Courtesy," says Henry Clay Risner, "is that quality of heart that

overlooks the broken gate and calls attention to the flowers in the

yard beyond the gate." Courtesy is just as important to marriage as

oil is to your motor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the beloved "Autocrat of the Breakfast

Table," was anything but an autocrat in his own home. In fact, he

carried his consideration so far that when he felt melancholy and

depressed, he tried to conceal his blues from the rest of his family. It

was bad enough for him to have to bear them himself, he said,

without inflicting them on the others as well.

That is what Oliver Wendell Holmes did. But what about the average

mortal? Things go wrong at the office; he loses a sale or gets called

on the carpet by the boss. He develops a devastating headache or

misses the five-fifteen; and he can hardly wait till he gets home—to

take it out on the family.

In Holland you leave your shoes outside on the doorstep before you

enter the house. By the Lord Harry, we could learn a lesson from the

Dutch and shed our workaday troubles before we enter our homes.

William James once wrote an essay called "On a Certain Blindness in

Human Beings." It would be worth a special trip to your nearest

library to get that essay and read it. "Now the blindness in human

beings of which this discourse will treat," he wrote, "is the blindness

with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures

and people different from ourselves."

"The blindness with which we all are afflicted." Many men who

wouldn't dream of speaking sharply to a customer, or even to their

partners in business, think nothing of barking at their wives. Yet, for

their personal happiness, marriage is far more important to them, far

more vital, than business.

The average man who is happily married is happier by far than the

genius who lives in solitude. Turgenev, the great Russian novelist,

was acclaimed all over the civilized world. Yet he said: "I would give

up all my genius, and all my books, if there were only some woman,

somewhere, who cared whether or not I came home late for dinner."

What are the chances of happiness in marriage anyway? Dorothy

Dix, as we have already said, believes that more than half of them

are failures; but Dr Paul Popenoe thinks otherwise. He says: "A man

has a better chance of succeeding in marriage than in any other

enterprise he may go into. Of all the men that go into the grocery

business, 70 per cent fail. Of the men and women who enter

matrimony, 70 per cent succeed."

Dorothy Dix sums the whole thing up like this: "Compared with

marriage," she says, "being born is a mere episode in our careers,

and dying a trivial incident.

"No woman can ever understand why a man doesn't put forth the

same effort to make his home a going concern as he does to make

his business or profession a success.

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"But, although to have a contented wife and a peaceful and happy

home means more to a man than to make a million dollars, not one

man in a hundred ever gives any real serious thought or makes any

honest effort to make his marriage a success. He leaves the most

important thing in his life to chance, and he wins out or loses,

according to whether fortune is with him or not. Women can never

understand why their husbands refuse to handle them diplomatically,

when it would be money in their pockets to use the velvet glove

instead of the strong-arm method.

"Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into doing anything, and

doing without anything. He knows that if he hands her a few cheap

compliments about what a wonderful manager she is, and how she

helps him, she will squeeze every nickel. Every man knows that if he

tells his wife how beautiful and lovely she looks in her last year's

dress, she wouldn't trade it for the latest Paris importation. Every

man knows that he can kiss his wife's eyes shut until she will be

blind as a bat, and that he has only to give her a warm smack on the

lips to make her dumb as an oyster.

"And every wife knows that her husband knows these things about

her, because she has furnished him with a complete diagram about

how to work her. And she never knows whether to be mad at him or

disgusted with him, because he would rather fight with her and pay

for it in having to eat bad meals, and have his money wasted, and

buy her new frocks and limousines and pearls, than to take the

trouble to flatter her a little and treat her the way she is begging to

be treated."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy.

• Rule 6 is: Be courteous.

~~~~~~~

7 - Don't Be A "Marriage Illiterate"

Dr Katherine Bement Davis, general secretary of the Bureau of Social

Hygiene, once induced a thousand married women to reply very

frankly to a set of intimate questions. The result was shocking—an

incredibly shocking comment upon the sexual unhappiness of the

average American adult. After perusing the answers she received

from these thousand married women, Dr Davis published without

hesitation her conviction that one of the chief causes of divorce in

this country is physical mismating.

Dr G. V. Hamilton's survey verifies this finding. Dr Hamilton spent

four years studying the marriages of one hundred men and one

hundred women. He asked these men and women individually

something like four hundred questions concerning their married lives,

and discussed their problems exhaustively—so exhaustively that the

whole investigation took four years. This work was considered so

important sociologically that it was financed by a group of leading

philanthropists. You can read the results of the experiment in What's

Wrong with Marriage? by Dr G.V. Hamilton and Kenneth Macgowan.

Well, what is wrong with marriage? "It would take a very prejudiced

and very reckless psychiatrist," says Dr Hamilton, "to say that most

married friction doesn't find its source in sexual maladjustment. At

any rate, the frictions which arise from other difficulties would be

ignored in many, many cases if the sexual relation itself were

satisfactory."

Dr Paul Popenoe, as head of the Institute of Family Relations in Los

Angeles, has reviewed thousands of marriages and he is one of

America's foremost authorities on home life. According to Dr

Popenoe, failure in marriage is usually due to four causes. He lists

them in this order:

• 1. Sexual maladjustment.

• 2. Difference of opinion as to the way of spending leisure time.

• 3. Financial difficulties.

• 4. Mental, physical, or emotional abnormalities.

Notice that sex comes first; and that, strangely enough, money

difficulties come only third on the list.

All authorities on divorce agree upon the absolute necessity for

sexual compatibility. For example, a few years ago Judge Hoffman of

the Domestic Relations Court of Cincinnati—a man who has listened

to thousands of domestic tragedies—announced: "Nine out of ten

divorces are caused by sexual troubles."

"Sex," says the famous psychologist, John B. Watson, "is admittedly

the most important subject in life. It is admittedly the thing which

causes the most ship-wrecks in the happiness of men and women."

And I have heard a number of practicing physicians in speeches

before my own classes say practically the same thing. Isn't it pitiful,

then, that in the twentieth century, with all of our books and all of

our education, marriages should be destroyed and lives wrecked by

ignorance concerning this most primal and natural instinct?

The Rev. Oliver M. Butterfield after eighteen years as a Methodist

minister gave up his pulpit to direct the Family Guidance Service in

New York City, and he has probably married as many young people

as any man living. He says:

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"Early in my experience as a minister I discovered that, in spite of

romance and good intentions, many couples who come to the

marriage altar are matrimonial illiterates." Matrimonial illiterates!

And he continues: "When you consider that we leave the highly

difficult adjustment of marriage so largely to chance, the marvel is

that our divorce rate is only 16 per cent. An appalling number of

husbands and wives are not really married but simply undivorced:

they live in a sort of purgatory."

"Happy marriages," says Dr Butterfield, "are rarely the product of

chance: they are architectural in that they are intelligently and

deliberately planned."

To assist in this planning, Dr Butterfield has for years insisted that

any couple he marries must discuss with him frankly their plans for

the future. And it was as a result of these discussions that he came

to the conclusion that so many of the high contracting parties were

"matrimonial illiterates."

"Sex," says Dr Butterfield, "is but one of the many satisfactions in

married life, but unless this relationship is right, nothing else can be

right."

But how to get it right? "Sentimental reticence"—I'm still quoting Dr

Butterfield—"must be replaced by an ability to discuss objectively

and with detachment attitudes and practices of married life. There is

no way in which this ability can be better acquired than through a

book of sound learning and good taste. I keep on hand several of

these books in addition to a supply of my own booklet, Marriage and

Sexual Harmony.

"Of all the books that are available, the three that seem to me most

satisfactory for general reading are: The Sex Technique in Marriage

by Isabel E. Hutton; The Sexual Side of Marriage by Max Exner; The

Sex Factor in Marriage by Helena Wright."

So,

• Rule 7 of "How to Make Your Home Life Happier" is: 'Read a good

book on the sexual side of marriage.

Learn about sex from books? Why not? A few years ago, Columbia

University, together with the American Social Hygiene Association,

invited leading educators to come and discuss the sex and marriage

problems of college students. At that conference, Dr Paul Popenoe

said: "Divorce is on the decrease. And one of the reasons it is on the

decrease is that people are reading more of the recognized books on

sex and marriage."

So I sincerely feel that I have no right to complete a chapter on

"How to Make Your Home Life Happier" without recommending a list

of books that deal frankly and in a scientific manner with this tragic

problem.

----

• The Sex Side Of Life, by Mary Ware Dennett. An explanation for

young people. Published by the author, 24-30 29th Street, Long

Island City, New York.

• The Sexual Side Of Marriage, by M.J. Exner, M.D. A sound and

temperate presentation of the sexual problems of marriage. W.W.

Norton & Co., Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

• Preparation For Marriage, by Kenneth Walker, M.D. A lucid

exposition of marital problems. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 70 Fifth

Avenue, New York City.

• Married Love, by Marie C. Slopes. A frank discussion of marital

relationships. G.P. Putman's Sons, 2 West 45th Street, New York

City.

• Sex In Marriage, by Ernest R. and Gladys H. Groves. An informative

and comprehensive book. Emerson Books, Inc., 251 West 19th

Street, New York City.

• Preparation For Marriage, by Ernest R. Groves. Emerson Books,

Inc., 251 West 19th Street, New York City.

• The Married Woman, by Robert A. Ross, M.D., and Gladys H.

Groves. A practical guide to happy marriage. Tower Books, World

Publishing Company, 14 West 49th Street, New York City.

----

In a Nutshell

Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier

• Rule 1: Don't nag.

• Rule 2: Don't try to make your partner over.

• Rule 3: Don't criticize.

• Rule 4: Give honest appreciation.

• Rule 5: Pay little attentions.

• Rule 6: Be courteous.

• Rule 7: Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.

In its issue for June, 1933, American Magazine printed an article by

Emmet Crozier, "Why Marriages Go Wrong." The following is a

questionnaire reprinted from that article. You may find it worth while

to answer these questions, giving yourself ten points for each

question you can answer in the affirmative.

For Husbands

1. Do you still "court" your wife with an occasional gift of flowers,

with remembrances of her birthday and wedding anniversary, or with

some unexpected attention, some unlooked-for tenderness?

2. Are you careful never to criticize her before others?

3. Do you give her money to spend entirely as she chooses, above

the household expenses?

4. Do you make an effort to understand her varying feminine moods

and help her through periods of fatigue, nerves, and irritability?

5. Do you share at least half of your recreation hours with your wife?

6. Do you tactfully refrain from comparing your wife's cooking or

housekeeping with that of your mother or of Bill Jones' wife, except

to her advantage?

7. Do you take a definite interest in her intellectual life, her clubs and

societies, the books she reads, her views on civic problems?

8. Can you let her dance with and receive friendly attentions from

other men without making jealous remarks?

9. Do you keep alert for opportunities to praise her and express your

admiration for her?

10. Do you thank her for the little jobs she does for you, such as

sewing on a button, darning your socks, and sending your clothes to

the cleaners?

For Wives

1. Do you give your husband complete freedom in his business

affairs, and do you refrain from criticizing his associates, his choice of

a secretary, or the hours he keeps?

2. Do you try your best to make your home interesting and

attractive?

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information.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I'm not interested in

what you desire or what the President of the United States desires.

Let me tell you once and for all that I am interested in what I desire

- and you haven't said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of

yours .]

Will you, therefore, put the ---------- company on your preferred list

for weekly station information - every single detail that will be useful

to an agency in intelligently booking time.

["Preferred list." You have your nerve! You make me feel

insignificant by your big talk about your company - nd then you ask

me to put you on a "preferred" list, and you don't even say "please"

when you ask it.]

A prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your latest

"doings," will be mutually helpful.

[You fool! You mail me a cheap form letter - a letter scattered far

and wide like the autumn leaves - and you have the gall to ask me,

when I am worried about the mortgage and the hollyhocks and my

blood pressure, to sit down and dictate a personal note

acknowledging your form letter - and you ask me to do it "promptly."

3. Do you vary the household menu so that he never quite knows

what to expect when he sits down to the table?

4. Do you have an intelligent grasp of your husband's business so

you can discuss it with him helpfully?

5. Can you meet financial reverses bravely, cheerfully, without

criticizing your husband for his mistakes or comparing him

unfavourably with more successful men?

6. Do you make a special effort to get along amiably with his mother

or other relatives?

7. Do you dress with an eye for your husband's likes and dislikes in

colour and style?

8. Do you compromise little differences of opinion in the interest of

harmony?

9. Do you make an effort to learn games your husband likes, so you

can share his leisure hours?

10. Do you keep track of the day's news, the new books, and new

ideas, so you can hold your husband's intellectual interest?

---------------------------

The Dale Carnegie Courses (Removed)

Other Books (Removed)

End