In a recent study of happiness in marriage a Wabash College professor discovered that in general the husbands studied rated their own happiness one point below the ratings their wives picked.
Why that difference? Perhaps, it is because so many wives go into marriage with a preconceived idea of what a good wife is or ought to be and never bother to check up to find out if their ideas of what constitutes a good wife are the same as their husbands’.
Mary Jones may believe whole-heartedly that she is an excellent wife because she is a good cook, a thrifty housekeeper, and a responsible mother.
Bill Jones, while accepting those qualities as his natural due, may believe that a good wife also should be a happy-hearted companion, intellectually capable of keeping up with her husband.
If Mary has never bothered to find out what Bill thinks a wife should be — but knows she is all that she thinks a wife should be – then it would be natural for her to assume that her marriage is a happier partnership than it actually is.
Nobody in the world can tell a woman how to be a good wife. That is something she has to learn after marriage. And she has to learn the answer by studying her own husband to find out what he needs from the woman who shares his life.
The woman who doesn’t hold her husband’s love and then says self-righteously “I was a good wife to him” just doesn’t understand that a good wife is one who is right for her husband.
From the Edwardsville Intelligencer. Edwardsville, Illinois. February 7, 1951.