diff --git a/Doc/library/httplib.rst b/Doc/library/httplib.rst
index 4c87d17..874fd54 100644
--- a/Doc/library/httplib.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/httplib.rst
@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@
    server.  It should be instantiated passing it a host and optional port
    number.  If no port number is passed, the port is extracted from the host
    string if it has the form ``host:port``, else the default HTTP port (80) is
-   used.  When True, the optional parameter *strict* causes ``BadStatusLine`` to
+   used.  When True, the optional parameter *strict* (which defaults to a false
+   value) causes ``BadStatusLine`` to
    be raised if the status line can't be parsed as a valid HTTP/1.0 or 1.1
    status line.  If the optional *timeout* parameter is given, blocking
    operations (like connection attempts) will timeout after that many seconds