Chapter 25: You Marry a Husband
YOU MARRY A HUSBAND
THE third thing to remember is that you marry a husband. For you, Val, I doubt that this will be as difficult to remember as it is for women who have had brothers and sisters, and who have known their own fathers. For some of them it is easy to transfer what they expected of fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers or girlfriends to their unfortunate husbands and this is a burden no man can bear. He stands in a relationship to you which is totally new and unique and it is going to require a measure of maturity for both of you to enter into it.
If you succumb to the temptation to expect your husband to fulfill all the roles of all the relationships you have had prior to marriage you will learn that this is asking too much. He needs his male friends, you need your female ones, even though your marriage and your home take top priority in your interest. Try not to put your poor husband in the indefinable position of having to listen to all your troubles, little or big (and your classification of them will most likely differ from his), to discuss hairdos and recipes and diets and menus and the color of the living-room draperies as well as the topics that may interest both of you far more. Now I know men who take a lively interest in their wives’ hairdos and recipes, men who actually go shopping for their wives’ clothes, and I even know of one husband who makes his wife’s clothes. Some men want to know what you’re planning for dinner and want to rearrange furniture. If he’s interested, that changes the whole picture. If he’s not, talk it over with somebody who is if you want to talk it over at all.
I know I’m sticking my neck out to mention food and clothes and furniture at all. The stereotypical “traditional” wife is interested in nothing else. That’s nonsense, of course. We could as easily accuse men of talking only about cars, sports, or the stock market. Anyone, man or woman, who has a live and curious mind may be interested in food, furniture, sports, and the stock market for after all, all of us eat, we need furniture, recreation, and money. Why shouldn’t we talk about them occasionally? But it doesn’t mean that nothing else is of interest. I like to cook, and good cooking takes a lot of time, talent, and imagination. I talk about it sometimes. But when I’m peeling an onion I’m not thinking about onions. My mind ranges far from the sink. A man has to drive a car, he probably likes to drive a car, and he wants a good one. He talks about cars sometimes. But when he’s driving it his mind may be on theology or big-game hunting or even on his family.
All I’m suggesting is that you not be a bore. Some topics will interest your mother more than they will interest your husband. Remember, he’s a husband!
Your father used to say that every woman needed three husbands: one to bring home the bacon, one to love her, and one to fix things around the house. It is a lot to expect of one man, and a woman ought not to judge her husband solely on the basis of how good he is with a hammer. If a woman happens to have had a father who fixed faucets and doorknobs and loose tiles, who went around oiling hinges and planing sticking drawers without even being asked, she expects her husband to do the same. What kind of man is it, she asks, who is no good with wrenches and screwdrivers?
There are women who have grown up in athletic families where all the boys played football or baseball, and the whole family slept, ate, and drank sports all year-round. It comes as a shock to such women if they marry men who have no use for team sports but would rather fish or hike. A young wife I know was dumbfounded at the array of gear required to keep her husband “in shape.” He had two or three sports going at once and on some days had to change clothes two or three times in order to meet the requirements. She found herself going around picking up “all these outfits!” as she said, and having to keep up with the laundry. She just wasn’t prepared for that when she acquired a husband.
I believe a woman, in order to be a good wife, must be (among other things) both sensual and maternal. Marriage entails sensuality —an appreciation of the body and the senses as distinguished from the intellect —but a woman must also have a certain maternal feeling toward her husband. Not that she babies him. Deep resentment is expressed sometimes by women who feel that their husbands want to be babied. But a wife must want to take care of her husband and to minister to him as gladly as a mother ministers to her child.
The husband has a corresponding task. The word husband carries the connotation of conserving, caring for, managing, or protecting. A wife needs to allow herself to be cherished. Let him “husband” you. This is easy for certain women. It is perhaps too easy, and they may not only allow themselves to be cherished but they require coddling. You know me well enough to know that this is not what I mean. You have not been coddled. Growing up with Indians taught you to accept very matter-of-factly what most of us “civilized” people would call hardship. You knew from the beginning that you were not expected to fuss, and you learned your lesson well. You have been independent, ever since the days when you would go off with the Indians for a whole day’s fishing or gathering, leaving me behind. On your first day of school in the States the school bus went right past you and I had to drive you down to the school. The children had all gone in when we arrived, but you marched with courage into that completely new place, carrying your lunch box and holding your head up.
So I am not fearful of your being a clinging vine. But do let him cherish you. He is your husband.