Husband

“ We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his mood"? ”

“ Beyond was the good wife, true of touch and tender, happy amid her household cares, clean of heart and conscience, the helpmate and the buckler of her husband. And the children, strong and sturdy, trooping down the lane with the lowing herd, or, weary of simple sport, seeking, as truant birds do, the quiet of the old home nest. ”

“ Let the husband keep his head, and THE WIFE UTTERLY LOSE HERS, throwing it to the winds, to be wholly swept away by the whirlwind of her passion; feeling free, delighting, to let it go, go, go, no one cares where! ”

“ The much lov'd husband, of a happy wife.
To him, whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn, and ungratefull heart;
And to the World, by tend' rest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers. ”

“ Has he any call to be a husband, who kisses his wife only on Saturday night, when he winds up the clock and pays the grocer, and who never notices, day by day, the neat dress, and shining bands of hair arranged to please his stupid milk-and-water-ship?
TO THE LADIES.
A CALL TO BE A WIFE. Has that woman a call to be a wife, who thinks more of her silk dress than of her children, and visits her nursery no oftener than once a day?
Has that woman a call to be a wife, who cries for a cashmere shawl when her husband’s notes are being protested? ”

“ In these moments she caught glimpses of herself, not as this draggled, pain-gripped, hungry creature, the prey of frenzied, torturing moods, but as a wife tenderly beloved, a happy mother of little children, the mistress of comforts that her husband had won for her, the appointed dispenser of blessings; a wife tenderly beloved, the true owner of her husband’s heart, a woman whose work it was to grow daily in strength and grace, that she might be more and more his helper, his lover. ”

“ When the loving wife feels that the husband is in the house, and when the loving husband feels that the wife is in the house, that is everything! The joy of each other’s presence is the crown of married bliss. ”

“ O my Lord, we have only one to depend upon—the husband is the object of the wife's thoughts, of her understanding, her study, her acquisition, her meeting, her society; in short, this jewel—the husband is all to a virtuous woman. O thou letter! ”

“ If a tale reaches her ears of a wife who has failed of her duty, or if the public newspapers record a divorce, then she awakens her husband to a sense of his superior happiness, and her own irreproachable virtue. ”

“ Open the door quickly!”
“My husband?” said she. “Alas, he is far from here! May God soon bring him back in safety.”
“By my soul, wife, I am your husband! Did you not know my voice? I knew yours as soon as I heard you speak.”
“When he does come, I shall know of it long beforehand, that I may receive him as I ought, and that I may call together his relations and friends to wish him a hearty welcome. Go away! Go away! and let me sleep!”
“By St. John I will take care you do not! Open the door! Do you not know your own husband?” ”

“ Often, and especially where love has entered into the contract, ’tis a twilight study, softly lustrous. A wife respected as competent house-wife, as counsellor, as triumphant mother, sharing her husband’s anxieties for the upkeep and shepherding of their little family, aware of his ambitions, if little understanding them, and happy in their joint observance of orthodoxy—that sheet-anchor of safety to her conservative soul. ”

“ A light word between husbands and wives sometimes goes unexplained, and the rift between them widens through life. I know some houses where the wife enters at one door and the husband at another; where if they meet on the stairs, they do not salute each other. Under the same roof they have lived for years and have not spoken. ”

“ For whom do children cry out in the night when they get frightened at a bad dream? Aye, to whom does the husband go when he has a business trouble too great or too delicate for outside ears? We, the men, are heads of the household in name, but you, O wives! are the heads of the household in fact, and it is your business to take your husband with you into the kingdom of God, and see that house prepared for heaven. ”

“ Your wife, for instance, or the impenetrable mystery of womanhood that you contemplate making your wife some day—can you, honestly, now, as a self-respecting husband of either de facto or in futuro, quite agree to the spectacle of that adored lady sitting over across the hearth from you in the snug room, evening after evening, with her feet—however small and well-shaped—cocked up on the other end of the mantel and one of your own big colorado maduros between her teeth! ”

“ Let the husband look upon the object in whose sacred care he has "garnered up his heart," and on the little innocent who draws the fountain of its life from her pure breast, recalling, as he gazes on one and the other, the freshness and the strength of his early and his ardent love ”

“ Don't you know a wife shouldn't keep secrets from her husband? A warm-blooded, affectionate husband, to boot." He bent down, knocking aside her flailing arms, and pulled her closer to him. "Better tell your husband where the book is, Cuddles!" ”

“ Let the husband in his turn remember that an unkind or slighting word spoken of his wife, touches his own honor to the quick, and be instant in resenting the words that should never have been spoken in his presence. ”

“ Ah, look at the faithful wife now, as she strikes off her husband's fetters—listen to the glad music, destin ormai felice!—they take each other's hand—they go away proudly into the glad daylight—husband and wife together for evermore. ”

“ The dreamy, distraught, yet unembittered existence of the husband, revelling in the visions of the Platonic philosophy—the anxiety of the father and his friends—the ardent, the pure and chivalric love, with the uncompromising devotion and soothing attentions of the wife—are pictures whose merit will not fail to be appreciated by all whose good opinion is of value. ”

“ Invitations are never tolerant, my dear Countess; acceptances always are. But do tell me, how is your husband, the Count,—or perhaps he is no longer your husband. One never knows these days whether a man is his wife's husband or whether she is simply his wife. ”

“ In truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their separation, the last words of the wife to the husband being those of the most playful affection, while the language of the husband toward the wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy, are in themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. ”

“ How many anecdotes and stories do you tell your wife to provoke a smile or a laugh? How many roses or pinks do you pin on your coat, and how many do you bring home to her? Are you careful of your own appearance in the long evenings when there is no other woman but her to be captivated by your manly charms? I am inclined to believe there is more excuse for her, if her dress has not been changed, her hair made tidy, than there is for you, most noble husband! ”

“ Ah Wife! says the Husband, If People that Rise Early and come Home Late, and are all Day out of your Sight, cannot be Quiet for ye, what a Case is your Poor Husband in, that must Spend his Whole Life in your Company. ”

“ Her husband will be to her the object of all her care, solicitude and affection. She will see nothing but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive his unkindness."—SIR WALTER SCOTT—Waverley. ”

“ It is the first duty of a husband to support his wife.”
“Old-fashioned husbands, yes—but not modern ones. Lots of men marry to be supported nowadays. How on earth could I support the man I love?”
“You are not without talents, my dear.” ”

“ The erring wife returning to find her husband married to another woman, to nurse one of her own children through his last illness without being recognised by him or by her husband, and to die at last in her husband's house with the merest shadow of consolation in the shape of his somewhat grudging forgiveness, presents us with a figure which cannot fail to be extremely pathetic. ”

“ And how much the less should we, in the humbler walks of life, obey the divine command, 'Be fruitful and multiply'? If a husband truly loves his wife, and if she truly loves him, they will live for each other and in each other, and they will be one ”

“ Keep some wood for the winter fire, and remember what is expected of a married woman. Her husband must be able to count upon her in his home; it is she to whom he must entrust the key of his heart; his honour, his household, his welfare are in the hands of his wife. ”

“ It was not only my art-love which must be sacrificed to my duty as a wife, but my literary tastes must go with it. "The husband is the head of the wife." To be head, he must be superior. An uncultivated husband could not be the superior of a cultivated wife. ”

“ He treated his wife always as if she were a sweetheart. He helped her to dress, to take care of her household so far as help could be given by a busy man, to do the thousand and one thoughtful things that a loving husband can do for a beloved wife. ”

“ Every time you kiss your husband"—a shriek of bitter laughter cut his words, and his staring, starting eyes half closed with hellish merriment—"or the child you love so well, my shadow will be on you. ”

“ Why, if I must tell you, you little curiosity box, I did; you know how powerfully my husband is hung, and loving him as I do, it is impossible to undergo his powerful and lascivious embraces without feeling all one's libidinous passions stirred up within me, but even while in his possession, my dear boy, I thought of your young charms, and the fierce delights we had enjoyed together last night. ”

“ For a most beautiful thing is a thrifty wife, who clothes both herself and her husband with fair array of her own working; [714] in which all are glad—the children on account of their mother, the husband on account of his wife, she on their account, and all in God. ”

“ Husband and Wife. To preserve the marriage vow inviolate, the same pure love that brought the two together should be cultivated by home uses and home amusements such as readings, games, conversation, etc. If the wife have needle work, let the husband read or talk to her; if he be a literary man, let her presence cheer him on and inspire him to nobler and more refined productions. ”

“ One seldom sees a husband and wife so entirely of one mind as to what are the things that matter. 3And if the Mother—Maria Emily Cubitt—was the one to bring to the union the keen wit, the happy humour, which her children inherited and loved to recall, her husband was the first to acknowledge and rejoice in her gifts. ”

“ And for this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the husband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house kept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks up her tears. ”

“ Does the husband snore, or chew; has he disagreeable breath, or a clumsy manner of kissing his wife? does that lady wear false hair, give her tongue too free play, or habitually take up the newspaper as soon as her husband shows signs of dropping into sentiment? ”

“ Go to the good heart that is my husband
Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love:—
Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him
Wrought out my destiny—that through the flesh
I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
There is no marriage in heaven
But there is love. ”

“ They represent a pair of beggars—husband and wife—dressed in rags. The husband is the filthier of the two; it is vice which has brought him so low; the wife is unhappy and degraded only through the misdeeds of her husband.
They are called the gardener and the gardener's wife, and they pretend it is their duty to guard and care for the sacred cabbage. The husband has several names, each with a meaning. ”

“ The boy's mother told him of the many courtesies shown the wife by this model husband, and said, "Now, John, when you grow up I want you to treat your wife like Dr. Porter treats his wife. Make her happy. Be thoughtful. Be appreciative. Don't hesitate to tell her that you have been thinking of her during the day. Tell her that you love her. Say sometimes the nice things that lovers say to their sweethearts." ”

“ Her husband thinks himself so happy in her that he takes all occasions to speak well of her, as one of the best of women. It is no indecency at all, but a laudable instance of conjugal love, for husbands and wives to give one another their due praises. ”

“ When wives dress up and put their best foot forward to please their own households, as they do for outsiders; when the husband dons his best coat and pantaloons, boots and hat, cane and gloves as often and readily, to walk out with his own wife, as—when away—he does to do the same for somebody else's, the world will be a good deal better off than it is to-day. ”

“ Your marriage will resemble the acacia-grove we are now going to, the leaves of which grow thicker with the heat of summer, while other shrubs are yielding only shrunk and porous shade."
As we entered through the upper garden-door into this same bower, the supper and the good mistress were already there. Nothing is more pure and tender than the respect with which a wife treats the benefactor or comrade of her husband ”

“ I admitted. "Wiser women than I am have married. But it is equally possible that I might marry a man who would command me to preach; and in that case I want to be all ready to obey him."
At this another man, a bachelor, also began to draw from the Scriptures. "An elder," he quoted, "shall be the husband of one wife." And he demanded, triumphantly, "How is it possible for you to be the husband of a wife?" ”