Dear Ann Landers,
ecently I read your advice to the wife who said she felt like an "unpaid housekeeper." The woman described her spotless home, beautiful meals-and she even shined her husband's shoes. Yet he showed no appreciation whatever. You said, "The woman who knows how to make her husband feel that he is her hero has it made." I would give anything in the world if I could do just that. How does a woman make her husband feel like "her hero"?-Also Unap-preciated

Dear Also,
How did you treat the fellows you dated when you wanted to make a wonderful impression? Test your mem-ory, kiddo, and replay the tape. You laughed at his jokes, built him up, and made him feel special and important. You treated him with courtesy and respect. You waited until you were alone if you had some criticism you just had to get out. A successful marriage is not a gift; it is an achievement. The effort and energy that a woman puts into her marriage is like 179 money in the bank. It begets interest in the form of strength, confidence, and stability. When the going gets rough you have something to draw from. A marriage license is not a guarantee that the marriage is going to work, any more than a fishing license assures you that you'll catch fish. It merely gives you the legal right to try. 180 THIRTEEN TEEN-AGE SEX-PUT OUT OR HOLD OUT? Dear Teen-Ager: You've written me over a million letters. It's time I wrote you one. I'm not as pessimistic about your generation as some people. I don't happen to buy the idea that most of your leisure time is spent sniffing glue, smoking marihuana, tripping out on LSD, killing yourselves on the highways, and having sex orgies five nights a week. Ninety- seven percent of you kids have never been arrested and probably never will be. You are, on the whole, more sensitive than your parents, less prejudiced, and less willing to settle for shoddy values. I know, too, that in some ways your life is easier than theirs was when they were teen-agers, and I wish they would stop telling you about it. In many ways your life is more difficult. They had money problems. You have identity problems. I've come to know you well through your letters, and I have met thousands of you face-to-face. You've been courteous and responsive when I lectured in your schools from Buffalo to Los Angeles, from Minneapolis to Miami. And not just white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Showcase schools. The all-Negro high school in Greenville, Mississippi (this was 1965), was no 181 showcase, but the students were marvelous. They reaffirmed my faith in the potential of all people who have an oppor-tunity to live decently and get a good education. A great many adults are concerned about your morals. They say you are sleeping around a lot and they worry about it. There is some justification for their concern. In the past twenty years the number of unwed mothers has tripled. Venereal disease is at an all-time high, in spite of penicillin. In some areas, V.D. has reached epidemic propor-tions. Forty percent of all teen-age brides are pregnant when they get married. Some authorities in the field of sex education believe it is ridiculous to condemn premarital sex. "What's the use?" they cry. "When we tell kids to save sex for marriage they look at us like we had holes in our heads. The best we can hope for is to teach them sexual responsibility." One prominent leader in Planned Parenthood said, "Pre-marital sex should be entered into as a faithful episode. Choose your mate carefully, and so long as you go with that particular party, don't sleep with anyone else." He adds this last-minute bit of advice, "Remember to use effective con-trols." What he means, of course, is, "If you can't be good, be careful." Vn attractive middle-aged housewife made it abundantly clear on a TV network program recently that The Pill was a "Godsend." "Since the pill," she said, "I am a new woman. I give it to my teen-age daughter and I sleep much better now." Such reasoning represents total capitulation and unspoken condonation. It is the same as leaving this note for a burglar: "Dear Friend: I know you are here to crack the safe. It won't be necessary. Here is the combination. Please take what you want and don't destroy anything." My position on premarital sex is plain and simple. Premari- 182 tal sex is dumb. It is dumb because it violates the moral and ethical rules of our society. And don't say, "The rules are wrong." Maybe some of them are, but they are the rules, and rules should be obeyed. When we disregard rules we pay a penalty, and the penalty for premarital sex is usually guilt, self- deprecation, worry, and a sullied reputation. Sometimes the penalty is V.D. or pregnancy. The girl who gives herself to her steady "to prove her love" often becomes disenchanted when the Romance of the Cen-tury turns out to be something less than perfect. She considers herself "damaged goods." A girl who has lost her virginity tends to become promiscuous because she feels she has noth-ing to lose. And then there's fear. Fear of pregnancy, fear of disease, fear of getting found out, fear of being dumped. And when he dumps you, there's the fear of being abandoned. He was the most important thing in your life. What now? The whole ugly scene is a nightmare I have heard described a thousand times. "It's too late for me," they write, "but please warn the girls who haven't yet made the foolish mistake. Tell them it's not worth it." Sex is not a plaything. It is God's plan for perpetuating life. And it is something more. It is the perfect way to express complete love and devotion. This kind of emotional invest-ment requires judgment and maturity. Boys and girls operate on different wavelengths. She has the romantic image of love as it is portrayed in the movies. She envisions the boy as her knight in shining armor. He will protect her, stand by her, cherish her. Sexual intercourse will bind them together forever. This is love. The boy is thinking, too-but not about love. Most boys are thinking about making out. Boys make out for a variety of reasons, most usually because it is easier to find a girl who will say Yes than to control their physical urges. It is a glandular response rather than a spiritual commitment. Many boys make 183 out to prove their manhood. And some boys make out because they want to brag to their peers. Whether you are going to be a Hold-Out or a Put-Out is your decision. No matter how strict your parents are they cannot police you twenty-four hours a day. If you want to slip your collar, you'll find a way. I urge you to make the decision on the basis of whether or not it will be beneficial for you. Weigh the arguments for and against. What do you stand to gain? What do you stand to lose? Will sexual relations add to your inner security and peace of mind? Will it enhance your feeling of personal worth? If you should become pregnant, what would it do to your life-to your family? And if you believe The Pill is the answer, forget it. It isn't, for high-school girls. The Pill must be taken under a doctor's supervision to be a hundred percent effective. Think it over. It could be the most important decision of your life.