The Great Inferiority Complex

 Letter to Home Chat's problem page, February 1951:

Is it true that men never fall for clever women? The reason I ask is because I'm thirty and my love affairs have always stopped short of marriage. I've men friends - but that's all. I'm particularly frustrated at present because a man I care for has just got engaged to a completely feather brained little creature! I'm a qualified accountant, and considered capable and successful - I'd exchange it all for a really happy marriage!

Answer:
This is one of those questions on which it is impossible to generalise, my dear. I think it all depends on the girl herself and also on the men that she meets. I'm sure it's not true to say that men never fall for clever women - there are scores of happily married, clever women! But I do think - and I mean this very seriously - that a woman who flaunts her cleverness will find it hard to get a beau! It's a fatal mistake for a woman to make her superior knowledge and ability felt. She'll give a man an inferiority complex and he won't forgive her for that! But there's another kind of cleverness that has nothing to do with learning. It's the ability to manage your own affairs without seeming too independent, of being able to get your ideas adopted without giving advice. Be subtle and let a man feel he's "boss" while you keep a gentle hand on the steering-wheel. There are fundamental laws for a happy marriage. And never forget that a woman's greatest charm has always been, and always will be - just her womanliness!


Summing up: poor, fragile men! Don't let them think you're in charge of a situation, it'll hurt their poor little fragile egos. And then they won't want to be your friend or give you babies. Live your whole life hiding your true self, my dears!


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