James Thurber's Philosophy on Marriage

James Thurber, a distinguished writer, writes a piece on how to maintain a successful marriage. It offers advice to both men and women to make everything work out. In a humorous way he sets up rules for each gender by stereotyping a traditional man and traditional woman. His assumption of an everyday woman is that she's always organized, clean, but very antsy and his assumption of an everyday man is messy, unorganized, and fresh. His rules are gender biased and specify certain things a woman and man should or shouldn't do.

Rule one stereotypes both gender in the same way. Saying that both partners can't bash on the other partner's former relationships. He also sets rules to not bad mouth the other's intelligence, capability, looks, or character. He calls this sweet-heart slurring. Thurber said this will end in divorce most likely.

Rule five though stereotypes woman mostly. Thurber points out how a woman will always try and do something which always bothers the husband while he is reading or watching TV. Not only does Thurber say that she is always doing something he specifically notes what a wife is stereotypically doing. Whether it be swinging one foot in the air in boredom, filing her fingernails, or trying to catch a mosquito, Thurber says they are always doing something instead of sitting or lying down attentively leaving the husband alone in peace.

Now rule six on the other hand completely undermines the male gender in my opinion, but Thurber using his humorous style sets out to teach men what is really going on in their own house. Comically Thurber stereotypes the male sex as "lost." He says they always lose things or just can not find it. Even if it is the simplest everyday things; they just have to wait for the wives to give it to them in their hands. Thurber, with much sense of humor, states even if a wife leaves a detailed map for their husbands showing where everything and anything is, he would probably lose the map too.

Men seem to be lost around the house the way Thurber puts it, but not only that, he says they are a mess too. Rule ten in Thurber's piece points out how man always find their way to a wife's dressing table with something "wet, oily, greasy, or sticky." Stereotypically Thurber says it is usually a universal joint, a hub cap, or the blades of a lawn mower. In