How to Stay Married

Clothes

CLOTHES AND APPEARANCE

‘THE REASON WHY so few marriages are happy,’ said misogynist Swift, ‘is because young ladies spend their time in making nets not cages.’

No wife has any right to let herself go to seed after she’s married. She bothered enough to look pretty while she was trying to hook her husband, so it’s a poor compliment to him if she slackens up immediately after he’s hooked.

Remember that the world is full of pretty girls who are not averse to amorous dalliance, and if you want to keep your husband, you’ll have to work hard to go on attracting him.

It’s a case, of course, of shacking-up ô son goût. Some men prefer their wives au naturel, others are like the husband who said to me: ‘The marvellous thing about old Sue is that she always looks as neat as a new pin. I’ve never seen her without make-up or slopping around in jeans.’

Exotic clothes

Remember that no man ever went off his wife because he saw a crowd of men round her. So always pull out the stops when you go to parties, or out in the evening, or pick your husband up from the office. It is important to him that other people think you’re attractive.

And even if your husband does prefer you without make-up, put some on when you go to a party. You’ll have to compete with all those dollies with their false pieces and their three pairs of false eyelashes. Your husband won’t be amused if he has to keep leaving the pretty girl he’s chatting up to look after you because you’ve been abandoned.

If a wife wants to jazz up her husband’s wardrobe, her best method is to start giving him exotic clothes for his birthday. He’ll never go and buy them of his own accord.

It is also up to husbands and wives to take an interest in each other’s appearance. Tell your husband when he looks handsome, and even if you are the sort of man who can’t tell a discarded false eyelash from a centipede, compliment your wife on her appearance when she buys a new outfit or is dressed up to go out in the evening.

SEWING

Great row potential here.

Shirt buttons always fly off when the man is getting dressed in the morning, or last thing at night when you’re both going to bed, so they never get sewn on. Your wife will also plump for Terylene socks and say they are healthier and cheaper, and can be thrown away when they go into holes, to be told by her husband that his mother always darned his woollen ones.

If the wife really can’t sew, she should just content herself with sewing on buttons, and send all major repairs to the cleaners, where they can be done for a few shillings.