How to be Happy, though Married

My friend, Michelle Lovric, has recently edited a book - no, let's use its proper subtitle: "A Tender Compendium of Good and Bad Advice" - with this wonderful title. Some of the quotes given make me laugh out loud, like:

"Sometimes your wife will initiate sex. This will occur when you walk in the door after completing a triathlon, or in the closing minutes of tied grand final." (Peter Downey)

Others are poignant:

"As for the clitoris, this is to be saluted, at most, in passing, and afterwards ignored as much as possible; for the reason that it is a rudimentary male organ, and an orgasm evoked there evokes a rudimentary male magnetism in the woman, which appears to pervert the act of intercourse, with the result of sensualising and coarsening the woman." (Ida Craddock's The Wedding Night of 1900.)

Ho hum. One Lucy H. M. Soulsby is quoted as saying,

"A husband of "a superior woman" is usually much to be pitied",

but I say the ones that are to be pitied are the wives of all those saluting men who went to good old Ida for advice! It does conjure up some lovely images though if she was taken literally...

More about the book here.