The Qualities to Look for in a Wife

Chastity, perfect modesty in word, deed, and even thought is so essential that without it no female is fit to be a wife. It is not enough that a young woman should abstain from anything approaching boldness in her behaviour towards men; it is not enough that she casts down her eyes, or turns aside her head with a smile, when she hears an indelicate allusion: she ought to appear not to understand it, and to receive from it no more impression than if she were a post. A loose woman is a .disagreeable acquaintance: what must she be then, as a wife? Your free and hearty girls I have liked very much to talk and laugh with; but never, for one moment, did it enter my mind that I could have endured a free and hearty girl for a wife. A wife, I repeat, is to last for life, she is to be a counterbalance to troubles and misfortune, and therefore must be perfect.

Sobriety. By the word sobriety in a young woman I mean a great deal more than a rigid abstinence from the love of drink; I mean sobriety of conduct. The word ‘sober’ does not confine itself to matters of drink: it expresses steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous propriety of conduct. Now sobriety is a great qualification in the person you mean to make your wife. Playful, frivolous, careless girls are very amusing, and they may become sober, but you have not certainty of this. To be sure, when girls are mere children they should play and romp like children, but when they arrive at that age when they begin to think of managing a house, then it is time for them to cast away the levity of the child.

If any young man imagines that this sobriety of conduct in young women must be accompanied by seriousness approaching gloom, he is, according to my experience, very much deceived. The contrary is the fact; for I have found that gay and laughing women are the most insipid of souls and are generally down in the dumps. A greater curse than a wife of this description would be somewhat difficult to find. I hate a dull, melancholy thing; I could not have existed in the same house with such a thing for a single month. Whereas a sober woman is underneath joyful and contented.

Industry. By industry, I do not mean merely labour or activity of the body, for purposes of gain or of saving; for there may be industry amongst those who have more money than they know what to do with. Industry in the wife is always necessary to the happiness and prosperity of the family. If she is lazy then the children will be lazy; everything, however urgent, will be put off to the last moment, then it will be done badly, and in many cases, not at all: the dinner will be late, the journey or visit will be delayed; inconveniences of all sorts will be continually arising, there will always be a heavy arrear of things unperformed; and therefore a lazy woman must always be a curse.

Finally beauty ... the last in point of importance. But the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage of it, is that it naturally and unavoidably tends to keep the husband in a good humour with himself, to make him pleased with his bargain. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of taste, what one man admires, another does not; and it is fortunate for us that it is so. But still there are certain things that all men admire; and a husband is always pleased when he perceives that a portion, at least, of these things are in his own possession. He takes his possession as a compliment to himself: there must have been, he thinks, some charm, seen or unseen, to have caused him to be blessed with such an acquisition.

Michael Swan. Understanding Ideas. Cambridge University Press.

 

Language focus

 

1. Suggest synonyms and antonyms for the italicized words. Use a thesaurus if necessary. Translate the word combinations into Russian/Belarusian:

– a rigid abstinence;

– a disagreeable acquaintance;

– a loose woman;

– a hearty girl;

– a sober woman;

– an indelicate allusion;

– a frivolous girl.

 

2. Paraphrase or explain the meaning of the following phrases:

– a heavy arrear of things unperformed;

– to act in a mature way;

– to cast away the levity of the child;

– to make him pleased with his bargain;

– to be down in the dumps;

– sobriety of conduct;

– a counterbalance to troubles and misfortune.

 

3. Which of the following best explains the use of gloom:

darkness, despondency, wretchedness, dimness, obscurity.

 

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