Tuesday 4 August 2009

Don'ts for Wives



My husband picked this up for me in a local bookshop the other day, the book is no bigger than a mobile phone and, though first published in 1913, it's replete with the kind of timeless advice for wives that comes from experience.

One of my favourite quotations from 'Don'ts for Wives' is this:

"Don't say it's a waste of time to make marmalade at home when you can get it better made from the stores. Your husband and children never like any so well as yours, and it is worth the trouble of making it to see how they enjoy eating it."

I think the point that the author, Blanche Ebbutt, is making, has a wider meaning than simply taste in marmalade.
It seems to me that Ebbutt alludes to the importance of mothers being present in the home, avoiding the delegation of their irreplaceable being, as wives and mothers.
After all, the relationships between wives/husbands, parents/children, have primacy in marriage and family life.
I wonder what 'Catholic Marriage Care' would make of this little book's insights?

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