If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they’d never marry.

The line trades on a comic, slightly cynical premise: marriage depends on illusion, and the private lives of women—what they do and think when unobserved—would puncture men’s romantic expectations. Read as O. Henry–style epigram, it uses exaggeration to expose how courtship often relies on idealization and ignorance of the other person’s ordinary habits. At the same time, it reflects early-20th-century gender stereotypes, implying a gap between public femininity and private reality. Its sting comes from reversing the usual suspicion (that women should fear men’s private behavior) and making male desire appear fragile, sustained by not knowing too much.