This was a wedding gift to me from my bridesmaid. I’m hoping she was trying to be funny. With that said, most woman have seemed to be lost for words when offering me advice about marriage so it seems this will have to be my point of reference and my little wifey education going forward.

You will probably note that it was published originally in 1913. Nearly 100 years on….it’s outdated at points, yes. It’s utterly hillarious at points, yes. Has it got some points of truth in amoungst it all? Mmmmm…yes. Points which the modern, feministic wife would probably rebuke or rebell against, but just quietly between us, they’re probably good old fashioned points we need know and practise, on occasion, for the sake of matrimonial bliss.  

I personally like how the author, Blanche Ebbutt, has painted the image of marriage right up in the preface. Blanche seems to be the put it straight type, and I appreciate her no muck about attitude. I think she might really be able to help me.

Let me share the preface with you:

Art is a hard mistress, and there is no art quite so hard as that of being a wife. It takes a perfect artist to remain married – married in the perfect sense of the term; but most of us have to be content to muddle through.

Imagine a girl called upon without a single lesson to produce a tune – a lot of tunes – in fact, one never-ending succession of harmonies – from the most difficult instrument in the world. Note that the instrument not only gets grumpy in cold weather and skittish in the spring – not only slacks or breaks it’s strings with every change of temperature – but becomes tempestuous over a tight shoe, broody over an out of date egg, and cross, sulky, or mirthful for reasons that no sane woman can understand.

This is what the average wife has to reckon with; and if she intends to play the game -humiliating as some may think it – HE will loom largely on the horizon all her life.

I have a new favourite word from this - skittish! And with that said, I will now go and play wife

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