Many of the best observations on a whole host of topics—including marriage and family life—come from anonymous sources. Here are a few more:
Never forget your anniversary;
have the date engraved inside your wedding ring.
Never contradict your wife.
Listen awhile and she’ll eventually contradict herself.
Never marry a person you’ve known for less than a year.
Never marry someone who makes you give up your friends.
Never marry someone who looks down on your family.
Never marry someone who wants to change you.
Never trust a man who says he’s the boss at home.
He probably lies about other things too.
Never marry a man who hates his mother,
because he’ll end up hating you.JILL BENNETT
Bennett, a Malaysian-born English actress, was the fourth wife (out of five) of British playwright John Osborne. She had been divorced from him for five years when a 1982 issue of London’s The Observer featured this as the “Saying of the Week.” Osborne, who helped transform English theater in 1956 with Look Back in Anger, was the leading figure of a group of English playwrights known as “the angry young men.”
Never teach your child to be cunning or you may be certain
you will be one of the very first victims of his shrewdness.JOSH BILLINGS (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy.ANNA ELIZA BRAY
Bray, a nineteenth-century English novelist, was writing in an era when the idea of doing things to make children happy was often disparaged as mere coddling. She added: “Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow—the wholesome warmth necessary to make the heart-blood circulate healthily and freely.”
Never threaten a child with a visit to the dentist.JANE E. BRODY, in a 1984 New York Times column
Never marry a man who can’t please you.
If you’d rather be with someone else, then don’t make the commitment.DR. JOYCE BROTHERS
It’s the first rule of marriage: never tell a wife you’re tired.ANDREW CLOVER
Clover, an English actor and writer, said this in an article on love in London’s Sunday Times on Valentine’s Day, 2010. He added: “Ignore that, and you fall foul of the Bill of Women’s Rights.” His point was that husbands don’t work nearly as hard as their wives—and will therefore get little sympathy when they complain about being tired. That Bill of Women’s Rights, according to Clover, states:Throughout this marriage, we are the ones who’ve got up, every night, often to tend to children who literally chewed our flesh. In all arguments and situations, therefore, we shall be considered the injured party, and if any man should dare to complain, on the one day he woke early, he shall rightfully taste the lash on his fat hairy shoulders.
Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife,
unless the one is to be sold and the other to be buried.CHARLES CALEB COLTON, in Lacon (1820)
Never marry a man who lets you walk all over him.
It’s good to have a doormat in the house, but not if it’s your husband.PAT CONNOR, in his 2010 book Whom Not to Marry:
Time-Tested Advice from a Higher Authority
We introduced Father Connor at the beginning of the chapter, when we described Maureen Dowd’s 2008 interview with him. That exposure in the New York Times helped Connor land a book deal, thereby enabling him to more fully explore his mate-selection rules. In addition to his doormat observation, he also wrote:
Never marry a man who isn’t responsible with cash.
Most marriages that flounder do so because of money,
a case of ’til debt do us part.
Never say “that was before your time,”
because the last full moon was before their time.BILL COSBY, on speaking to children,
in Love and Marriage (1989)
Never on any account say to a child,
“You are lazy and good for nothing”
because that gives birth in him
to the very faults of which you accuse him.ÉMILE COUÉ, in Self Mastery Through
Conscious Autosuggestion (1920)
Coué was a pioneering French psychologist who believed that mental health could be improved through a ritualized repetition of a phrase or saying. His most famous was, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” His work greatly influenced American self-help authors and laid the foundation for the modern use of affirmations.
Never tell your wife she’s lousy in bed.
She’ll go out and get a second opinion.RODNEY DANGERFIELD
Never marry your childhood sweetheart;
the reasons that make you choose her will
all turn into reasons why you should have rejected her.ROBERTSON DAVIES, from Boy Staunton,
the narrator of The Manticore (1972)
Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.PHYLLIS DILLER, in Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints (1966)
Never refer to your wedding night as the original amateur hour.PHYLLIS DILLER, in Phyllis Diller’s Marriage Manual (1969)
Never do for a child what he can do for himself.RUDOLF DREIKURS, in Children: The Challenge (1964)
A similar quotation, never formally verified, has long been attributed to the educator Maria Montessori: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”
Never marry a girl of a mocking spirit.
Raillery, with a woman, is a mark of hell.ALEXANDRE DUMAS fils, in Man-Woman (1872)
Dumas apparently preferred submissive women who didn’t stand up to their husbands, even in jest. Raillery is “good-natured teasing.” Synonyms are banter and badinage.
Never treat a guest like a member of the family—treat him with courtesy.EVAN ESAR
Never judge a man by the opinion his wife has of him.BOB EDWARDS, Canadian journalist and humorist
Edwards also offered these two additional thoughts about spouses:
Never judge a woman by the company she is compelled to entertain.
Never discuss a man with his wife in the presence of company.
When a woman’s husband is under discussion,
she isn’t in a position to say what she really thinks.
I met my wife by breaking two of my rules:
never date a girl seriously that you meet at a nightclub and never date a fan.COREY FELDMAN, on Susie Sprague, a former Playboy model;