Timeless Advice for Wives from Blanche Ebbutt’s “Don'ts for Wives” (1913)
Don’t forget to wish your husband ‘good morning’ when he sets off for the office. He will feel the lack of your good-bye kiss all day.
Don’t be out if you can help it when your husband gets home after his day’s work.
Don’t let him search the house for you. Listen for his latch-key and meet him on the threshold.
Don’t omit the kiss of greeting. It cheers a man when he is tired to feel that his wife is glad to see him home.
Don’t keep your sweetest smiles and best manners for outsiders; let your husband come first.
Don’t choose the very time your husband is at home to ‘see about’ all sorts of things in other parts of the house. Sit with him by the fire; smoke with him if it pleases you and him; read or be read to; sing or play cards with him, or chat with him about anything that interests him. It is your business to keep him amused in the evening.
Don’t talk to your husband about anything of a worrying nature until he has finished his evening meal.
Don’t bother your husband with a stream of senseless chatter if you can see that he is very fatigued. Help him to the tid-bits at dinner; modulate your voice; don’t remark on his silence. If you have any cheery little anecdote to relate, tell it with quiet humor, and by-and-by he will respond. But if you tackle him in the wrong way, the two of you will spend a miserable evening.
Don’t think it beneath you to put your husband’s slippers ready for him. On a cold evening, especially, it makes all the difference to his comfort if the soles are warmed through.
Don’t think your household gods of more importance than your husband’s comfort. Don’t for instance refuse to give him a bedroom fire in cold weather because it makes ‘too much dust.’
Don’t hesitate to inconvenience yourself to give him a den all his own. He’s really a good fellow.
Don’t be careless about the way meals are served when you and your husband are alone. Dainty surroundings do much to make eating an agreeable process, instead of a mere means of keeping oneself alive.
Don’t be afraid of cold meat. A few cookery lessons, or even a good cookery book, with the use of a little intelligence, will make you mistress of delicious ways of serving leftovers.
Don’t persist in having mushrooms on the table when you know they always make your husband ill. They may be your favorite dish, but is it worth it?
Don’t take your husband at his own valuation, but yours. He may be unduly modest, or just a little too cocksure.
Don’t omit to pay your husband a compliment. If he looks nice dressed for the opera, tell him so. If he has been successful with his chickens, or his garden, compliment him.
Don’t try to model your husband on some other woman’s husband. Let him be himself and make the best of him.
Don’t be everlastingly trying to change your husband’s habits, unless they are very bad ones. Take him as you find him, and leave him at peace.
Don’t worry about little faults in your husband which merely amused you in your lover. If they were not important then, they are not important now. Besides, what about yours?
Don’t advise your husband on subjects of which you are, if anything, rather more ignorant than he.
Don’t nag your husband. If he won’t carry out your wishes for love of you, he certainly won’t because you nag him.
Don’t refuse to take an interest in your husband’s hobbies, but don’t let him leave all the tiresome work to you.
Don’t try to excite your husband’s jealousy by flirting with other men. You may succeed better than you want to. It is like playing with tigers and edged tools and volcanoes all in one.
Don’t refuse to run up to town for a couple of days, when your husband has to go on business, on the plea that you have ‘nothing to wear.’ Go in what you’ve got, and have a good time.
Don’t get the idea that all your husband wants is a housekeeper, or a decorative head of the table. He wants a companion and when he is at home he doesn’t want you to be always somewhere else.
Don’t let your husband feel that you are a 'dear little woman,’ but no good intellectually. If you find yourself getting stale, wake up your brain.
Don’t profess to care nothing about politics. Any man who is worth his salt does care, and many men learn to despise women as a whole because their wives take such an unintelligent attitude.
Don’t become a mere echo of your husband. If you never hold an opinion of your own about anything, life will be dreadfully colorless for both of you, and there will be nothing to talk about.
Don’t expect your husband to want to spend evenings at home if you don’t make home the most comfortable place.
Don’t forget that you have a right to some money to spend as you like; you earn it as wife, and mother, and housekeeper. Very likely you will spend it on the house or children when you get it; but that doesn’t matter - it is yours to spend as you like.
Don’t spend every penny you get, unless it is so little that you absolutely must. Try to put back for the proverbial “rainy day.”
Don’t dress badly, even if your allowance is small.
Don’t be satisfied to let your husband work overtime to earn money for frocks for you. Manage with fewer frocks.
Don’t allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only’ your husband to see you.
Don’t reject your husband’s advice on matters of dress without reason. Many men have excellent taste and original ideas on the subject.
Don’t open the door yourself when your husband is present. He would open it for a lady guest, let him open it for you. Besides, your boys will not learn the little courtesies that count nearly so well by precept as by example.
Don’t let your husband become merely your children’s father after the arrival of the first baby. You can give him an extra share of love in that capacity, but he won’t want to be any less your husband and chum.
Don’t say you can’t go out with your husband because you can’t leave the children. Make arrangements that will enable you to leave them in satisfactory hands.
Don’t say your husband “looks silly” with a baby in his arms. Let him realize that the youngster is partly his, and that there is nothing derogatory to his dignity in handling him.
Don’t omit to take your husband into your confidence on matters connected with the training of the children. Let him bring his wits to bear on the problems that are troubling you.
Don’t say it’s a waste of time to make marmalade at home when you can get it at 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.
Don’t allow the children in any way to depose you from your position as Queen of the Home. Insist upon the respect that is due to you. See that the boys open the door for you on every occasion.
Don’t grudge the years you spend child-bearing and child-rearing. Remember you are training future citizens, and it is the most important mission in the world.
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