children as the wife and mother does. That is, of course, true up to
a certain point, always in general, and when his help is really
necessary in particular. But a man cannot enter into the details of
his wife's duties at home any more than a woman can enter into the
details of her husband's duties at his office.

Then, again, my readers may say: "But a woman's nervous system is
more sensitive than a man's; she needs help and consolation. She
needs to have some one on whom she can lean." Now the answer to that
will probably be surprising, but an intelligent understanding and
comprehension of it would make a very radical difference in the
lives of many men and women who have agreed to live together for
life--for better and for worse.

Now the truth is man's nervous system is quite as sensitive as a
woman's, but the woman's temptation to emotion makes her appear more
sensitive, and her failure to control her emotions ultimately
increases the sensitiveness of her nerves so that they are more
abnormal than her husband's. Even that is not always true The other
day a woman sat in tears and distress telling of the hardness of
heart, the restlessness, the irritability, the thoughtlessness, the
unkindness of her husband. Her face was drawn with suffering. She
insisted that she was not complaining, that it was her deep and
tender love for her husband that made her suffer so. "But it is
killing me, it is killing me," she said, and one who saw her could
well believe it. And if the distress and the great strain upon her
nerves had kept on it certainly would have made her ill, if not have
actually ended her life with a nervous collapse.

The friend in whom she confided sat quietly and heard her through.