only to have him come
home some day reeking of liquor,--silly, obscene, helpless,--_her_
contact with John Barleycorn took the joy and sweetness from her life.
She often adjusted herself, but in many cases adjustment failed, and a
chronic state of bruised and tingling nervousness resulted.

A future generation will not consider it possible that the people of a
century that saw the use of wireless, the airship, radium, and the
X-ray could think intoxication with its literal poisoning funny, could
make a stock humorous situation out of it, and could regard the
habit-forming drug that caused it a necessity.

After all is said and done, the fiercest domestic conflicts arise out of
the inherent childishness of men and women. Pride and the unwillingness
to concede personal error, overtender egoism, bossiness, and rebellion
against it, petty jealousies and stubbornness,--these are the basic
elements in discord. Children quarrel about trifles, children are
unreasonably jealous, children fight for leadership and seek constantly
to enlarge their ego as against their comrades. Any one who watches two
five-year-olds for an hour will observe a dozen conflicts. So with many
husbands and wives.

Unreason, petty jealousy, stubbornness over trifles, bossiness (not
leadership), overready temper and overready tears,--these cause more
domestic difficulty than alcohol and unfaithfulness put together. The
education of American women is certainly not tending to eradicate these
defects, which are not necessarily feminine, from her character. In the
domestic struggle the man has the major faults as his burden; the woman
has a host of minor ones. She claims equality for her virtues yet
demands a tender consideration for her weaknesses.

Dealing with petty annoyances, disagreeing over petty matters, with her
mind engrossed in her disillusions and grievances, many a woman finds
her disagreeables a burden too much for her "nerves." That a philosophy
of life would save her is of course obvious, but this is a matter which
we shall deal with later.

CHAPTER IX

THE SYMPTOMS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THE HUSBAND

Throughout life, two great trends may be picked out of the intricacy of
human motives and conduct. The one is (or may be called) the Will to
Power, the other the Will to Fellowship. The will to power is the desire
to conquer the environment, to lead one's fellows, to accumulate wealth
(power), to write a great book (influence or power