Summersdale

Synopsis

In 1894, Ruth Smythers, ‘Beloved wife of The Reverend L. D. Smythers’, wrote:

‘While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured… One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: give little, give seldom and, above all, give grudgingly… Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices.’

The Methodist wife didn’t intend to be amusing, but this brief treatise written for young brides is side-splitting today and an eye-opener to how mores have changed in just over a century.