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I found this book in the rental house I moved into with my SO. It includes some lovely watercolour plates illustrating childbirth, and a large variety of questionable home remedies.

It also has a section on Making Marriage A Success This includes advice such as

"Both have years before them to weave into one harmonious life-pattern. This can be accomplished only through the exercise of mutual love and forbearance, the sharing of joys and sorrows, and the reciprocal surrender of what one is prone to call one's "rights""

"The possession of a sunny disposition is indeed a wife's most valuable asset"

"So wholesome and attractive may the home be made by a content cheerful woman, that the husband will leave it with reluctance, and will return to it at night with naught but thoughts of quietness and peace."

And my personal favourite...

"No doubt the foundation of a happy home lies very largely in the kitchen. Too often have ill-cooked dinners put asunder that which God hath joined together."

The chapter also emphasises that a good wife will always look after her own health.

This may be written in a quaint and old fashioned style, but I believe the message is still relevant, and somewhat lovely.

Share your lives and don't keep score.

Be pleasant to be around.

Keep your house tidy, and give him a soft place to land at the end of a hard day at work.

Learn to cook at least one or two meals well!

I just rediscovered this today, and thought I would share the common knowledge of the 30's on how to create a good marriage. Perhaps knowledge that is a little more difficult to find in 2016. I wonder what the 2016 edition of the "Ladies Handbook of Home Treatment" would read like...


[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

It's amazing how simple rules like this have become uncommon sense nowadays. It's so easy to have a good marriage. People have made it complicated.

[–]delores_rose5 points6 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

"The possession of a sunny disposition is indeed a wife's most valuable asset"

Yes, it is amazing how simply being cheerful can make such a difference with men. In the long term, it probably has much more value than keeping a trim figure. Not that you should neglect yourself, of course.

"So wholesome and attractive may the home be made by a content cheerful woman, that the husband will leave it with reluctance, and will return to it at night with naught but thoughts of quietness and peace."

Explains why my dad always hung out in the garage drinking beer. We all dreaded the weekends growing up because we knew it would be mostly my stepmom complaining about housework and stomping around the house.

"No doubt the foundation of a happy home lies very largely in the kitchen. Too often have ill-cooked dinners put asunder that which God hath joined together."

AMEN! My parents divorced after 25 years of marriage and his diet all those years mostly consisted of the same bland meals cooked over and over, and she eventually stopped cooking altogether and he lived on chicken pot pies, canned chili and other freezer tv dinners. Now, he has a girlfriend who cooks for him and my stepmom is all alone, crying because there's no one around. When you treat people like they are an obligation or like you are constantly annoyed or unhappy they will eventually go away and leave you alone. Now she doesn't have to cook or clean or be bothered by anyone but she is no happier now than she was when she was married.

[–]cats_or_get_out 3 points3 points [recovered] | Copy Link

I love these kinds of books! I'm curious about those illustrated plates and the questionable remedies! Hahaha

[–]BeautifulSpaceCadet 3 points3 points [recovered] | Copy Link

Wow, lovely -- any chance you could post a photo of the cover or something so that I might optimistically search for it??

Thanks for sharing such easily forgotten and simple truths (:

[–]eliza_schuyler 5 points5 points [recovered] | Copy Link

This is the edition that I have.

Glad you enjoyed the quotes. I was pleasantly surprised.

[–]BeautifulSpaceCadet 3 points3 points [recovered] | Copy Link

OP delivers!!! Thank you thank you (:

[–]jade_cat2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Thank you for sharing!

"No doubt the foundation of a happy home lies very largely in the kitchen. Too often have ill-cooked dinners put asunder that which God hath joined together."

Hence the saying "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". Many women forget that nowadays.

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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