1. The wife should understand the habits of her husband and should try to cut herself to his pattern. Any habit in the husband which is not to her liking should not be pinpointed. She should observe them and keep silent. She should tolerate it but at appropriate moment, with love and respect, just point them out. Those women who act with patience and perseverance succeed in reforming their husband. Those men whose wives encourage them during distress they eventually get over their difficulties and succeed in their efforts.
2. The woman should consider the house where she has come after marriage her own home. She should forget the atmosphere of her parents’ house and try to adjust in the new surroundings. She should understand the conditions obtaining in the new place and should carefully and diligently manage household affairs.
3. Service to husband is the first duty of every woman. Every wife should here If manage the needs of her husband, for example, breakfast and lunch and dinner should be ready in time whether she does it herself or through the help of a cook. She should arrange water, cold or hot for bath and she should put soap, towel and dress in proper order. She should get his shoes polished and if the husband gets ill he should be looked after and provided with medicine and food in time.
4. After the day’s hard and strenuous work when the husband returns home he desires peace and rest. If after entering home he comes across fallen faces and grumbling voices or quarrel among family members and children uncared and unclean and dirty, instead of peace and rest he gets restless and oppressed. He cries, ‘O my God what should I do. In the office I have to put up with ill ill-behavior of officers and coaxing and cajoling from fellow workers. I get perspired after hard work and when I come home I find it consuming and hell –like. O my God death is better than such a life.’ Such persons lose their health very soon and do not live long. When the time of the coming of the husband approaches she should dress the children after proper bath. Also she should dress well and should be ready to receive her husband. When he comes in she should happily receive him. She should help him in changing his dress and should offer him some snacks. And whatever bad news which has to be conveyed to him should be done in the night after he gets sufficiently relaxed and, that too, in a proper way and in appropriate words. Those women who do not do like this and if the husband starts disliking her, she has no case for complaint as she is herself responsible for her fate.
5. It is the duty of every woman that she feels the responsibility for engagements in the house and manages them with love and pleasure. She should not do it as compulsion and extortion: cleanliness of the house, sweeping and brushing, care and cleaning of furniture and keeping them at a proper place and well arranged and decoration of the drawing room and general upkeep of the house are common things which should not be neglected otherwise the house will become a shop of a dealer in old and broken furniture.
6. Besides the above mentioned duties women’s particular assignments are cooking, sewing, embroidery and washing. The husbands like and apprediate their wives according to their interest and sincerity in these things. Food should be cooked to the taste of the husband. If need be her own liking should be sacrificed. It is better if a programme for the whole week is chalked out so that it may eliminate the need if asking the husband for the daily menu. Ordinary cloth of the husband and children such as shirts and pajamas should be stitched by the woman herself. It is the duty of accomplished women to prepare sweater, socks and gloves. Also to do embroidery on pillows, covers, bed-sheets and table clothes. I have myself seen wives of generals of the British army washing their clothes. They never took it beneath their dignity. Our women should also do it. It will keep them fit physically. And children will also not look down upon such work if they see their mother doing it.
7. The care and bringing up of children is also one of the most important duties of women. To arrange daily bath for children, changing their cloth, oiling and combing, feeding and doing home task at proper time, narrate them nice, little stories before going to bed , to teach them smaller verses of the Holy Qur’an and teach them how to pray and also to teach them necessary injunctions of Islam and narrate them such stories from the history of Islam and they may encourage them, fill them with the pride of Islam so that they may be able to sacrifice everything for Islam, are the duties of women. Besides these it is the duty of women to take care of the health of children. If they fall sick they should be taken to the doctor and ordinary diseases should be treated by themselves. It is obvious that women alone cannot perform these duties. Hence men should also help them considering them as their duties. It should be noted that moral and social training is in no way only when the centre, the home, is well-established. In this connection the following things should be remembered and acted upon:-
a) Do not allow children to weep for along time. Ask the reason and try to redress the cause. The child never weeps without any reason. Either he is hungry or has earache or pain in the stomach or the bedding is wet and damp, or something is pinching him or he is feeling either hot or cold. If they are allowed to weep longer, it will slowly and gradually lead to the habit of stubbornness and it will be very difficult to get rid of it.
b) In order to save the children from the habit of stubbornness it is better to meet their demands. Legitimate of course, immediately. If they cannot be fulfilled their thought should be diverted towards something else. Do not keep them in the lap and arrange to keep them alone for two to three hours in a vacant room so that the beginning they develop the habit of self-help.
c) In order to rear them in a better way it is essential that they should be habituated to obey and from your own example teach them to say in every reply “Yes, Sir”, “ very good” etc. and they should carry out whatever you order them to do willingly. They should be taught the habit of doing work from the very beginning. When they start trodding, tell them to bring such and such thing, take such thing and place it somewhere as indicated by you. Please sit here: Please lie down etc., etc. This practice will bring in double benefit: firstly, they will develop the habit of obedience; secondly, their habit for instant work will go on developing. Do not talk before children which indicates that to work is a kind of evil of trouble, never talk about your poverty in the presence of children. This will help develop inferiority complex in them. Never say that there servants in such and such house and I have none. I have to do everything myself. Also do not say that children of so and so go to school I motor cars and tongas and my children go on foot in hot sun and downpour.
