7. Study Her Anatomy (But Not Like This!)
To be clear: do not dissect a woman to improve your love life. With that necessary disclaimer out of the way, French novelist Honore de Balzac did, for some reason, think this was valuable and sage advice. In his (thankfully) obscure work The Physiology of Marriage, Balzac argues that to maintain a proper marriage a man should dissect at least one woman to learn her anatomy correctly. Balzac cautioned his readers that marriage is a science and that adequate study was necessary to be a successful husband.
Balzac also believed that humans contain a large quantity of energy and that women didn’t know how to process theirs without having day jobs. He instructed men to keep their wives exhausted with constant domestic chores so that they wouldn’t develop feelings of independence, whims or daydreams. He also believed women shouldn’t drink plain water and instructed husbands to provide their wives with water mixed with burgundy wine.
Shockingly, despite the reams of quality advice he penned in Physiology, Balzac didn’t get married until the ripe age of 50, over 20 years after he shared his romantic wisdom with the world. He died six months after his wedding. What a pity for his presumably exhausted and mildly drunk widow.