The Harm of Spoiling Boys - How Selfish Wives are Made - The Best Way of Meeting Disappoint-ments - Victories Which May Become Defeats - The Power of Cheerful Acquiescence - The Ideal

Husband - The Building of Character

Human nature is naturally selfish, and one of the things we are sent into this world for is to conquer, as best we may, this inclination to think too much of ourselves and not enough of our fellow creatures.

Girls are brought up with a greater degree of coercion in this respect than boys, and this is true of all classes, though, in a special sense, more particularly of the well-to-do.

Girls are taught to give way to their brothers ,in a manner that is extremely unfair to the latter. It is very pleasant for them to be indulged at the expense of their sisters, but it gives them no chance whatever to fight against that inborn selfishness which they share with all the world.

It must often seem puzzling to a lad of twelve or thirteen when, after years of overriding and even browbeating his sisters, he is obliged to learn habits of exterior chivalry, civility, and attention to other girls who are not his sisters. A gradual change is coming over society in this respect, and the nurseries and schoolrooms of the latter half of this century will see a greater equality between the sexes.

Training Of Boys

Girls, of course, are often indulged in the home, and if they are pretty, charming, well-dressed, society takes up the same line and spoils them too. They make the selfish wives, unless their disposition is so sweet and true and naturally considerate that no amount of spoiling can injure them. Boys, on the other hand, are often so pampered by their mothers as to receive the worst possible training for matrimony. The consequences of the marriage of a selfish man and a selfish woman are too self-evident to need description.

In this paper the question deals chiefly with the wife's selfishness. It is very often insidious, so much so that she does not even suspect it in herself. It is so mixed up with her real affection for her husband that she fails to distinguish any element of self in it. Young wives especially are anxious to exhibit by every means in their power their overwhelming feeling of almost adoration for their husbands. This is a very foolish thing to do, in their own interests, in the interests of home happiness, and in the interests of the husband himself. Therefore, it is a selfish thing to do. A man soon tires of passionate displays of feeling on the- part of his wife. She herself loses dignity in adopting this course. An old proverb says, the more you love the less you should say about it. This is true wisdom with regard to marriage, though it does not apply to parents and children.

Bearing Disappointments

Sometimes a rather spoiled young wife has had so much of her own way that she has become wedded to it for its own sake. A fatal mistake this, and one in which selfishness is a principal ingredient. Every woman should beware of being so intent on having her own way that she sacrifices much real happiness to this mere reflection of it. For instance, should a wife express a strong wish for some particular thing, and the husband refuse the request, giving fairly good reasons for doing so, and showing some regret for being unable to comply, the wife should at once fall in with his views as amiably as may be. She is disappointed, of course; but, after all, it is better to bear a disappointment than to make even the smallest rift within the lute of home happiness, as would certainly be the case if she were to persist, to nag about the matter day after day, and even to call to her aid that foe of domestic bliss, tears.

Should the husband give in, she gets her way, but at a tremendous cost, which she is very rarely capable of estimating. She has triumphed, but there are victories which eventuate in defeats. A few more instances of the kind, and she will find that each one of her so-called triumphs has acted as a cold douche to the affection of her life partner.

Injurious Unselfishness

Now let us look at the other side of the case. Suppose the wife should have given in at once, cheerfully, brightly, gaily, to her husband's view, he will feel faintly remorseful, anxious to make amends for the disappointment that she has so unselfishly endeavoured to conceal. He knows his own circumstances best (and he is very foolish if his wife is not fully aware of his financial position), and he knows to what extent he may indulge his wife's natural love of amusement. Every time that he has to refuse her suggestion on such a point, and she submits with natural generosity of spirit, he feels the bond between them strengthening. This is taking for granted that he is not a wholly selfish, heartless man.

The ideal husband is he who delights in providing for his wife the becoming raiment and pleasures she naturally likes, . even at the sacrifice of a little of his own personal vanity. But no true woman would take advantage of this unselfishness, and one of the great difficulties of married life is to hold in equipoise the balance between the unselfishness which is injurious and that which is dictated by true wisdom and forethought for its influence on the character of both.

After all, the greatest thing in the world is the building up of character. Some day we shall know to what purpose this is so.

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