How to treat a wife....

How to cure your husband's bald spot with an onion...and other gloriously odd advice from the Victorians' domestic bible 

By VICTORIA MOORE
Last updated at 10:59 AM on 4th October 2010

Keep your feet warm to prevent headaches, restore hair by rubbing your head with onion, cure your corns with potatoes  -  such is the advice in the Victorians' bible of household management, Enquire Within Upon Everything. First printed in 1856, it has just been republished. VICTORIA MOORE reports on some nuggets of wisdom in its pages...

HOW TO TREAT A WIFE

• First, get a wife; second, be patient. You may have great trials in your business with the world, but do not carry to your home a clouded brow. Your wife may have trials, which, though of less magnitude, may have been as hard to bear. A kind, conciliating word, a tender look, will do wonders in chasing from her brow all clouds of gloom. 

Onions for hair-loss: 'The powers of this vegetable are of assisting the capillary vessels in sending forth new hair' according to Victorians' bible of household management, Enquire Within Upon Everything

• Do not treat her with indifference, sometimes yield your wishes to hers. if you never yield to her wishes, there is a danger she will think you are selfish and care only for yourself, and with such feelings she cannot love as she might. 
• Show yourself manly, so that your wife can look up at you and feel that you will act nobly. if she complains that young ladies 'nowadays' are very forward, don't accuse her of jealousy. A little concern on her part only proves her love for you, and you may enjoy your triumph without saying a word. 

HINTS FOR WIVES 

• If your husband occasionally looks a little troubled when he comes home, do not say to him: 'what ails you, my dear?' don't bother him; be observant and quiet. Let him alone until he is inclined to talk; take up your book or your needlework (pleasantly, cheerfully; no pouting  -  no sullenness) and wait until he is inclined to be sociable. 
• Don't let him ever find a shirt-button missing. A shirt-button being off a collar or wristband has frequently produced the first hurricane in married life. 
• Never complain that your husband pores too much over the newspaper. Don't hide the paper; take it in pleasantly and lay it down before him. Think what man would be without a newspaper; treat it as a great agent in the work of civilisation.
• When your husband is absent, instead of looking into shop windows, look over that paper; and at tea-time, when your husband again takes it up, say: 'my dear, what an awful state of things there seems to be in India' or 'what a terrible calamity at the Glasgow theatre' or 'Trade appears to be flourishing in the north!' and down will go the paper. If he has not read the information, he will hear it all from your lips, and when you have done, he will ask: 'did you, my dear, read Simpson's letter upon the discovery of chloroform?' And whether you did or not, you will gradually get into as cosy a chat as you ever enjoyed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1317502/How-cure-husbands-bald-spot-onion--gloriously-odd-advice-Victorians-domestic-bible.html#ixzz11OS4xh6F