Be kind to yourself - don't get married

Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) was born on this day in 1850.

"In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish," Stevenson wrote, "and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being."

Did you know that today is World Kindness Day? Let's be nice to one another. Keep in mind Stevenson's words: "Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity."

Whatever you say, dear

Author J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan) was born on this day in 1860.

"Every man that is high up," Barrie wrote, "likes to think that he has done it all by himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that."

A separate peace

Lord (Phillip Stanhope, 4th Earl of) Chesterfield, British statesman and wit, was born on this day in 1794. He wrote:

"The only real and lasting peace between a man and his wife is doubtless a separation."


   He didn’t say anything to her, and a couple of days later, while drinking at Irene’s after rugby practice, he’d got in a deep conversation with Rae Ann Jefferson, and had ended up going home with her. The next morning he’d got up and gone right to work, and that night he’d gone straight to Irene’s and hooked up with Rae Ann again. This time he’d gone home, in the middle of the night. Eleanor had come out of their bedroom.
   "Well, I guess this is it, isn’t it?" she’d said.
   "I saw you," he said. "I saw you with that guy."
   "He’s a friend. We sit and talk. He listens to me."
   "I don’t listen to you?"
   "No."
   Her mother was standing in her bedroom doorway, Sully surmised. At least somebody was listening.
   "Who is he?"
   "Just someone I met."
   “Do you love him?” He was trembling.
   “No.”
   “What can I do?”
   “Nothing.”
   “You spent the night with him.”
   “We talked. We sat in the parking lot and talked.”
   “What’d you find to talk about?” She looked at him sadly. “Because I can’t think of a God damn thing to talk about.”
   Three months later he and Eleanor were divorced, and Sully had moved into a two-bit apartment above a hobby shop, within walking distance of Irene’s.
                 -- Chapter 6, The Misforgotten.

His great-great-grandson Lex feels the same way

Today is International Women's Day! 


"Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children." -- Martin Luther.
 
She’d been lonelier in marriage than out of it. She’d called on her mother, and then when her dad died she’d had to take her in, even to the detriment of her marriage. She’d weighed things in the balance, however, and that was what she’d decided to do. And she’d explained it all to him.


A woman’s heart was something he’d never get to the bottom of.  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten.

Delighted you're getting married

Samuel Pepys, English diarist, was born on this day in 1633.

"Strange to say what delight we married people," Pepys wrote, "have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition."

His reverence for women hadn’t forestalled him from treating them vilely. He’d always approached the opposite sex with trepidation, if not outright terror, but once he’d made inroads he was often over-aggressive, particularly when stoked by alcohol. Even so, he was typically astounded and somewhat suspicious whenever a woman consented to have sex with him, and no matter how satisfying the experience turned out to be, he invariably came away from it with a lower opinion of his partner than he’d had before. That attitude, he realized, had foredoomed his marriage.  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten.