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Instructions and advice for the young bride

From an 1894 newsletter:

To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

On the other hand, the bride’s terror need not be extreme. While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it.

It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.

Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency. Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife’s best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home.

Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted. A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time. Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment.

The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection. She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he’s huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress.

As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more.

One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband’s home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband’s desire for sexual expression.”

Makes me glad to have been born well after 1894. But as Radical Russ points out, how far have we really come? Most of the underlying sentiments — men are sex-crazed, women who like sex are abnormal and slutty, the only purpose of sex is procreation, “good girls” avoid sex, men should be breadwinners and sex should be given in exchange for “support,” etc. At least it’s funny. Via Jesus’ General (a hysterical blog that I definitely recommend).

UPDATE: This one’s a hoax/parody as well. Still funny, though.


8 thoughts on Instructions and advice for the young bride

  1. That’s hilarious!!!

    If I’m not mistaken, I think the idea that woman do enjoy sex is relatively old. Then the Victorian Era really inspired some of the sentiments in this article.

    Thank Goddess for Alfred Kinsey.

  2. Seen this one before. That’s one way to space out births in lieu of birth control, eh?

    “Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective…”

    Always kills the mood for me. Whoda’ thunk it would work on those perverse sex monsters, I mean, men.

    “Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.”

    Proper is overrated. Gimme orgy anyday.

    But the best bit is “She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.”

    Yup, nothing like physical injury to kill the mood! If you’re really lucky, the guy might even break his leg and be unable to perform coitus for weeks – he might even die! (lack of sound medical knowledge and all)

  3. Well, being advised to lie back and think of housework certainly puts me off my ‘marital duties’. That will take a while to recover from.

    (Also, on a side note… I seem to be blocked from viewing this site from home, although I can see it at work. I am not sure why that would be?)

  4. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.feminism/msg/7c553e8407d00865?hl=en

    Ma’am,
    The above link gives the (apparently) original posting to USENET of the above article. If you view some of the comments posted to that thread, you’ll see some pretty good evidence to show that this supposed article is in reality just a humor piece. However, the original from USENET has a preface you have left out. This preface, as you can read, dedicates the tract partly to the “Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this Blessed Sacrament” while at the same time noting the author to be a Methodist. I can assure that it is only the Catholics and the Orthodox who believe in the Blessed Sacrament. Further, the Blessed Sacrament is God, so therefore wishing for “greater spiritual sanctity” for God is pointless. For these two reasons it is fairly obvious that this tract is inauthentic.
    Besides, what basis would even the most fundamentalist “bible believing” Christian have for wanting to limit sex inside of marriage? In the Adam and Eve story in Genesis, the first commandment given to man is “to be fruitful and multiply” and you can’t cery well be fruitful without sex, nor are there any other ways to multiply!
    –QUOTE–
    (reprinted in the fall issue, 1984)
    THE MADISON INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER, published in the year of our Lord 1894.
    Spiritual Guidance Press, New York City.

    INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE

    On the conduct and personal relationships of the marriage state for the
    Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of
    God by Ruth Smythers, beloved wife of the Reverend T.D. Smythers, Pastor
    of the Arcadian Methodist Church of the Eastern Regional Conference.
    –END QUOTE–

  5. It doesn’t say a whole lot about the good Reverend, the writer’s husband does it? I mean she’s positively disgusted by the idea he might touch her, it doesn’t seem like a very good basis for a relationship.

  6. Aldahlia,
    Yeah, it seems to be a parody (and that’s probably why it reads like a guy wrote it as one of those universal ‘complaint lists’ about women). At the same time it’s hilariously (or disturbingly!) close to a lot of this type of “advice” literature to women.

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