Spare the rod and spoil the husband is the advice my mother gave me when I married, Mrs Transom said. In those days, I'm talking about the 1920s, girls of my social class knew nothing about sex. I was 21 and Mr Transom was 40 and a widower but I wasn't a girl to be intimidated by an older man who'd already been married (his wife had died childless). Make him frightened of you, mama said. I made it clear to him that I intended to be mistress in my own house just as mama had been in her's. I don't mean that a man shouldn't be given his due in society but behind the doors of his home, he should know his place and keep it. The man who accepts that can expect a harmonious family life. It was necessary however that I should receive prior instruction about «that» side of a wife's responsibilities of which I was ignorant. Mama called me to her room one evening before my wedding when father was out and the servants were downstairs and produced a cardboard box such as contains a doll. The doll in this case was an anatomically accurate naked mannikin. This will have to stand in for Mr Transom since we can hardly summon him for the purpose, mama said. She went over the doll explaining its various features. In repose, she said, the penis is quite small but for the purposes of sexual intercourse, it stiffens and becomes much larger in order to be able to enter the lady's vagina and deposit its seed. She pressed a button on the doll and the little penis did in fact stand up. Once the essential explanations had been completed, mama went on to say that men had certain habits about which they were secretive which amounted to having sex with themselves. This will concern Mr Transom because they are all the same, mama said. What they do is to play with their penis manually in a way that emulates the action of sexual intercourse. This is known as masturbation. Many wives object to their husbands continuing to masturbate after marriage. I took the opposite view with your father. I told him that he would be free to masturbate but that he must not hide it. In effect, I would fully control his masturbation. The result is that throughout our marriage, your father has never masturbated without my permission and I have of course masturbated him myself many times, not for pleasure of course but to exert control. I can assure you that nothing looks sillier than a man masturbating himself but that is by the by. I have therefore enjoyed complete power over what for him has been an addictive source of pleasure. As you will have realised, the power to permit is also the power to withhold and becomes a very effective form of discipline. Your father quickly learned that failure to obey me resulted in the refusal to allow him to masturbate for as much as a week or more at a time. Few men, I assure you, can long bear such a denial. The other great thing of course is that indulging a man's masturbation is a welcome substitution for his unwanted attentions to your own person. It may interest you to know that in 30 years of marriage, your father has never seen me naked and only rarely in my undergarments. She paused before saying there was another thing that I might find useful. As you know, she said, most of the men who become our husbands go to boarding schools where, because there are no females, they frequently have sexual relations with each other. When caught, they undergo beatings on the bare buttocks. I know that it sounds disgustingly barbaric but it seems that in the male mind, sex and punishment become conflated and this can be turned to we women's advantage in disciplining our husbands and maintaining a healthy dominence over them. You have noticed sometimes that I have told your father at some point in the day that I wished to speak to him privately upstairs. In fact, he underwent punishment by having me thrash his bare behind with his own belt. I have not hesitated to make him cry on occasion. You can be sure that the combination of pain and humiliation ensured a subsequent period of exemplary obedience and behaviour. You will be surprised at how easy it is to make men submit to corporal punishment. In your father's case, an imperious manner on my part and a reminder of his school experiences were sufficient to bend him to my will. I'll admit that not all the beatings were intended to cause maximum pain ; some were contrived and inflicted just enough of a sting to be sexually pleasurable, the better to keep him amenable. She put her hand on my arm. There, my dear, you have my recipe for a happy marriage. You will manage Mr Transom in your own way. But keep my advice in mind and be sure that he will find in me, if you wish it, a mother-in-law who is fierce in the defence and application of wifely rights.