Are you plagued by a nagging wife? Driven to distraction by a drunken sot of a husband?
If an extreme solution is required, look no further than this eighteenth-century relationship advice. The answer, of course, is gin. Just give them a gallon (or two) of the stuff first thing in the morning, and a peaceful existence will be yours to enjoy.*
[reading on, we are also treated to the wisdom that leaping into a fire will cure the ague, and that tooth-ache may be most surely avoided by persuading some unfortunate to knock them clean out of your head. Drastic, but effective.]
How to Cure a Drunken Husband or a Scolding wife
For this you must take a Gallon of Geneva [gin], or otherwise called wilful murder, give it to her in a morning, and if that won’t do, give her two, and my Life for yours she’ll be as peaceable a Wife as ever man had. The same will do for a D[r]unken husband.
– from A New Fortune-Book (undated)
*Disclaimer: I do not *actually* recommend securing a peaceful existence by drowning your spouse in gin. Just saying. Don’t commit murder, kids.
Image: Detail from ‘Progress of a Woman of Pleasure’ by Richard Newton (1796)
The History of Love 
Reblogged this on VINTAGE STUDENT.