ABSTRACT
The man is the wife’s head, and the wife is the man’s heart. “A husband and wife can never be friends,” replies the German, “for one of the strands in the rope of friendship is mutual criticism, and it would be against nature for a wife to criticise her husband.” In America the average husband is more his wife’s obedient and devoted servant than her friend, and the American woman of the moneyed class resembles a spoiled and petted child. The young wife of the upper-middle class has not, when the honeymoon is over, enough serious occupation to keep her in good health and spirits. The husband, whose brain has been healthfully occupied all day, often comes home at night almost too tired to eat or speak, and naturally on such occasions finds his young wife’s demands upon his affection unreasonably exacting.
