This blog is a sort of follow-up to the previous one on the Neo-Victorian relationship. I feel that I went out on a limb with that one, so I thank everyone who commented and contacted me with their support.
The excerpts below are taken from Genevieve Antoine Dariaux's 1968 book, The Men in Your Life, her follow-up to, A Guide to Elegance. The front cover advertises the book as, "Timeless Advice and Wisdom on Managing The Opposite Sex." The entries copied apply to what I wrote in the previous blog regarding the trials and tribulations of manhood.
Aside from the Old World charm of her prose, I find her advice opens a world of relationships that I wish to be a part. A world where women accept their man for all of his virtues and vices with compassion and seek to manage him rather than punish him, use him, betray him, or abandon him. Genevieve Antoine Dariaux manages to be both sophisticated and yet in-touch with the realities of life and human nature. This places her beyond the pattern of cruelty I see repeated in modern relationships where it seems that you must be heartless in order to survive so that you may get them before they get you.
Needless to say, I highly recommend her books for developing Neo-Victorian Ladies, and even for the Gentlemen, because it outlines the aspirations and responsibilities of both. At the end of the day, we choose who we are and with whom we choose to have relationships. By making the right choices, Genevieve Antoine Dariaux's civilized and beautiful world is one that we can all be a part.
MAN
In recent times it hasn't been easy to 'be a man' in the traditional sense, since it required an attractive mixture of authority, virility, a sense of duty and justice, tenderness at home and firmness at the office; and he also had to give an impression of strength, to be the provider for his family, to have the courage to fight for an idea and to die for his country. In compensation for all these obligations - or perhaps because of them - men ruled over their wives and their wives obeyed them — or at least pretended to, since women at that time had to obtain by charm and ruse what they later obtained by legislation.
After centuries of uncontested superiority men eventually accorded almost equal rights to women and during the past fifty years they have grown accustomed to seeing women perform the same activities as they. All this was still quite tolerable and they were reasonably well adjusted to the change. They dried the dishes and sometimes gave the baby his bottle, but the family income was twice as large as before, and even if they were sick there was generally no longer a prospect of certain penury. Men retained a semblance of authority and they were still the masters in bed.
Then the Pill was invented, and women experienced true independence for the first time. Moreover, having acquired new techniques (mostly from books), they now challenge men to prove their virility, and there is an immense gulf for modern men between the position of imposing their law, like our grandfathers, and of receiving orders, like our sons. Modern women insist that men provide them with sexual satisfaction, scorning those who fail in this endeavor. They demand equal rights, but they still want a priority card when they are pregnant. In other words, what they demand is even more than equality; it is privilege plus protection.
So what is the meaning of being a man' to modern women? How can a man be a master and an equal at the same time? How can he be the sole provider as well as forty-nine-per-cent partner? How can he be a conquering lover and a piece-work laborer?
We shall finally demand so much that unhappy men may one day disappear from the face of the earth, like other creatures in whom women have taken too great an interest - such as Somali leopards and birds of paradise.
HUSBAND
The first step of every civilized society is to transform the males into husbands. The word still enjoys considerable prestige and is pronounced -with a capital H by almost all women.
Before entering into the state of bliss called matrimony, the future husband must win the object of his affections by means of his attractive appearance, his seductive phrases or his bank account — but preferably by all three. However after the honeymoon is over, the husband must begin to think seriously about his material situation, because after having thought only of coming home to go to bed together, his wife begins to notice that life goes on outside the bedroom too, that it is amusing to take part in the fun, but that love requires a more substantial diet than fresh -water in order to thrive. Little by little the husband must therefore add to his preceding roles of troubadour, teacher and indefatigable lover those of banker and social leader. It is no longer sufficient for him to charm his wife alone, for she wants to feel envied by all the other women. Since he is also supposed to be her Defender and Protector by the grace of Nature and the Justice of the Peace, he is advised to enrol at a night school in order to learn how to remove a splinter, to repair an electric light, to stop up a leak, to put out a fire and to settle disputes with tradesmen — in other words, to be a doctor, electrician, plumber, fireman and lawyer.
Then he will become a father, and in this role he will be expected to display tenderness, firmness and seriousness, at the same time remaining happy, carefree, full of imagination and fun.
When he reaches the age of fifty it will be most appreciated if he has managed to acquire many honours and a large fortune. He will preferably indulge only in golf — a sport in which it is hoped that he will have a respectably small handicap and will win a maximum of silver trophies. His wife will have become accustomed to his periods of silence, which she will fill (in the best of cases) with the more entertaining presence of the children and of friends of their own generation.
Finally, he is requested not to die too soon, and not too late either, but just at the right moment — in order to leave behind the charming memory of a Perfect Husband.
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