Bread with butter and sugar

Yesterday's post reminded me of a book I bought several years ago at a thrift store. Somehow I never really bothered to read it, but yesterday I suddenly thought it may contain an answer to the question of how a woman can keep a man tied up to herself. The book (written by James Thurber and E.B. White) is called 'Is Sex Necessary?'. It was published by Harper&Brothers Publishers in New York in 1929.

Tonight I've browsed through the book in search of the answers. The book deals with the nature of the American male, love and passion, feminine types, sexual revolution and some more related issues. I was particularly curious about the chapter called 'What every Young Wife Should Know'. It says nothing about wide skirts and talking with 'lower' lips or such. There's, however, some insight and practical advice:

"[...] women marry men without giving the serious chasm between their essential natures a thought. They think that a man wants a home. Well, he does, in a vague sort of way. Not so much a home, however, as a house. He likes to be able to say where he lives when he goes to vote, and things like that."

"A wife should strive at all times to give her husband at least the illusion that he is free to come and go."

"If a husband uses a guest towel, he should be quietly reprimanded, but under no circumstances sent to his room. After pointing out, briefly, that the guest towels are not to be used, the wife might even give him a piece of bread and butter with sugar on it, or a kind word."
(This is to prevent the husband from getting a feeling that he's "boxed in" with no escape.)

" [...] The same rules should apply to husbands when they live things lying around, or track in dirt, or forget to shut the refrigerator door. None of these faults is, after all, of very great importance, and they should be lightly dismissed."


"A wife is forever taking it for granted that her husband should know as much about a household as she does. If she would only realize that things which are easy and uncomplicated to her are strange and mysterious to her husband, and explain the mysteries to him, adjustments could be arrived at very simply, and sex then have a chance to mean something."

The book also says that writing is a form of sexual expression and quotes someone who goes even further, saying: writing is sex. Hmmmm...